"Na, Hedwig," growled the tranquil German in the fly, "disturb thyself not! There are many hotels in Menton, Zuruck! Geschwindt!"
And back they went straightway, impervious to the pleading of the dark-eyed man, who too late discovered that the senior partner in that domestic firm was not of the persuadable female sex. Then, recognizing Mrs. Allonby to be of more ductile material than the other two, he devoted his persuasive powers to the woman of substance and the British matron, whose stern brows soon relaxed beneath his sunny smile and pleading glances; the woman of substance finding herself in a trice, she hardly knew how, accommodated with an improvised chaise à porteurs, consisting of a perilously aged basket-chair and two hoe-handles borne on the shoulders of two handsome Italian workmen, whose teeth glistened with fun and the prospect of five-franc pieces to come, while the fair-sized man and the other matron were mounted each on a strong mule, and before they could utter a syllable of remonstrance, the mystic word "jay" came from the mule-driver, and they found themselves bumped out of sight up the narrow path, which, consisting of steep steps made of huge cobbles, or, rather, small crags, compelled them to devote their whole energies to avoid being shot over the mules' tails, as the animals reared on end with a jerk at each stony stair.
The remaining travellers, having been distributed among the other mules and donkeys, were soon mounting, nolens-volens and with inconvenient rapidity, the cobbled stairs, that at first threaded a sort of chimney in the ridge, and, later, reached a narrow, winding ledge with a perpendicular drop on one or either side, on the extreme edges of which the animals took a fiendish pleasure in balancing themselves, while their miserable riders shut their eyes and clung on for dear life, vainly imploring the mule-drivers to stop them. But the merciless drivers, deaf to entreaty, did nothing but urge the laggard beasts on with strange sounds, in which the word "jay" alone was intelligible (suggesting to the thoughtful mind a probable Aryan root signifying to proceed, from which this vocable and the Hindoo fao and the British gee are alike derived). Because whenever a driver said "jay," every donkey and mule went, and whenever any rider said anything to the drivers (and some of them said a good deal in different tongues), these at once cried "jay," bringing out the vowel sound sharply and leaving off before they had quite finished it.
It was during this ascent that the fold of Ermengarde's brain in which the French language was located suddenly became accessible, and she implored them in choicest Parisian to stop, to take her off, to allow her to fall in some soft place, anywhere, with the sole result of bringing a fresh shower of twig-blows and jays from these harmless people, who only understood the Italian patois of the district, and supposed from her agonized voice and gestures that she was anxious to ascend more quickly, whereas her one consuming desire was to get off her ambulant armchair at any price. It was some years since the unfortunate Ermengarde had ridden at all, and then it had been upon an average Christian horse, and only those who have been borne unwillingly by a series of bone-dislocating rears and jerks up endless staircases enclosed in rock-walls, and along knife-edged ledges overhanging abysmal nothingness, upon animals that understand no civilized language, and answer to no bit or bridle, and whose sole form of obedience is to run away from whoever pronounces the word "jay" in their rear, can imagine the complicated anguish of such riding. Nothing but the delight inherent to fallen nature at the spectacle of the misfortunes of others enabled Ermengarde to endure this singular form of torture; but when she witnessed the spluttering indignation of the British matron of majestic girth at being constantly, either crushed between the thin man and the adjacent rock-wall, or edged perilously over the precipice by his donkey, and his agonized attempts to avoid this unseemly proximity, with his wild and ineffectual endeavours to explain his own innocence and the friendly relations existing between their respective beasts, who could by no human means be induced to travel apart, she became uplifted in spirit and capable of enduring anything. Especially when the thin man weakly tried to apologize in French, of which he was hopelessly incapable, thus exasperating the woman of majestic girth to madness at the idea of being taken for a foreigner.
It was not until the handsome and stalwart donkey that bore the tortured form of Ermengarde took advantage of some mischance to the driver's apparel to dart up a side staircase, bordered by succulent grasses, with a suddenness that extracted an involuntary shriek from his hapless burden, that her woes came to pause, and, like Balaam's, her donkey found the path between the vineyards barred by the sudden apparition, not, indeed, of an angel with a sword, but of a comfortably real figure, with a walking-stick and two laughing dark eyes. He had dropped from heaven knew whence, and understood Parisian French even on English lips.
"If I don't stop I shall certainly die," gasped Ermengarde, suddenly relapsing into German, which presented no difficulty to the owner of the laughing eyes. "Never in my life have I had to climb a broken staircase on a wild ass before. It's like a nightmare."
"Yet Madame sits beautifully, is a good rider?"
"Oh, I can ride—horses—not nightmares, not wild donkeys up endless chimneys."
Then it was that this man of infinite resource came to the rescue. He took the donkey's short bridle—too short to be used by the rider—in one hand, and passing his other arm behind the saddle brought the lawless animal into subjection, and diverted the rider's attention from her misadventures to the splendour of the prospect, which was unfolding beneath them with every step they mounted, but which she had been totally unable to see because it was all behind. Then, after a short rest and rearrangement of the Bond Street hat, which, besides having been slept upon, was obviously not intended to ride donkeys up precipices in, he personally conducted donkey and rider for the remainder of the ascent, making Ermengarde's hair stand on end by disputing edges of precipices with the animal, and preserving her in violent and unexpected jerks by the support of his arm.
"But how will you ever face the miserable people you have fastened upon wild animals against their will, when we get to the top—that is, if there is any top, and we ever get there?" she asked.