I was sorry for the sindaco, a progressive man, with a dim sense at the back of his head of a future for Roccaraso if the mad forestieri take a fancy to it. He pulled his long ginger whiskers and considered.
“There is Fra Diavolo, brother of him I would send with you; possibly he knows the way, but I take no responsibility.”
“Send Fra Diavolo and the horses at noon, and the responsibility shall be upon our own heads.” He shook his head, pained but indulgent. The ways of the forestieri are becoming known to him, and their lack of that virtue of old people and old peoples, pazienza!
At quarter to twelve Fra Diavolo was at our door, with a vicious mule and pack-saddle for me, a weak-kneed, blind horse with prehistoric trappings and saddle-bags for J. We soon left the dazzling white road, struck across a grassy valley, and entered a wild, stony gorge, which reminded us of the Colorado Canyon. The path is the worst I have seen outside of Palestine. We soon dismounted and let Fra Diavolo lead our beasts. He had to be very careful, lest they should break their legs. The walls of the ravine towered on either side of us; to the left the granite rocks, which form the summit, seemed to have been shaped into Gothic battlements, towers, and buttresses. I could hardly believe that nature, and not one of the Sangallo family (the famous architects), had been the designer. The trees are of primeval growth. The gorge is crossed by open plateaus and glens covered with ancient oaks and beeches. At three o’clock we halted in a fairy dell beside a spring. The water ran through a trough made from the hollowed trunk of a tree. A pink-nosed sheep was drinking—the only brave sheep I ever saw,—I had a hand-to-hand battle with him to get my share of the water. Afterwards J. and I sat down to rest and contemplated the trail, which here divided into two.
“Which is the way to Scanno?” we asked our guide.
“Who knows, Signori?” said Fra Diavolo.
“Do not you?”
“Why did you say you could show us the way?”
“With the tongue one may go to Sardinia.”