“In that case I should be absolved. Your fellows gave me twenty for one—good measure, as I can tell by my aching ribs.”
“Bah!” contemptuously rejoined the bandit, “be satisfied that it is no worse with you. Thank the Virgin you’re still alive; or perhaps you may come nearer the mark by thanking that scar upon your little finger.”
The look with which these last words were accompanied spoke of some secret meaning. The captive could not tell what it was; but it gave him food for reflection that lasted him for some time after. Taken in connection with the close watch kept upon him, he could forbode no good from it. On the contrary, there was evil in the innuendo, though of what sort it was beyond his intelligence to discover.
On the second day from their leaving the town, the march continued on through a mountainous country, most of it covered with forest. The track was rougher and more difficult to travel—at times ascending slopes almost precipitous, at others winding through clefts of rock so narrow as only to admit the passage of one at a time.
Both brigands and captive suffered from thirst; which they were at length enabled to quench with the snow found upon the colder exposure of the ridges.
Just before sunset a halt was made, and one of the bandits was sent forward as a scout. A mountain summit, shaped like a truncated cone, was seen a short distance in front, and towards this the path appeared tending.
About twenty minutes after the scout had disappeared from view, the howl of a wolf came back from the direction in which he had gone, while another similar cry was heard still farther off. Following this, there was the bleating of a goat; on hearing which the brigands once more resumed their march.
Bounding an angle of rock, the face of the conical hill was seen from base to top, scarred by a deep ravine that led to its summit. Up this lay the path, until the highest point was reached; then a strange picture lay spread before the eye of the captive. He was looking down into a cup-like hollow, nearly circular in shape, with sloping sides, covered with a thin growth of timber, in places packed into groves. At the bottom there was a pond of water, and not far from its edge, through the trees, some patches of grey wall, with smoke rising above, declared the presence of human habitation. It was the rendezvous of the bandits, which they reached just before the going down of the sun.
Their home, then, was no cave, no mere lair, but something that more resembled a hamlet or village. Two or three of the houses were substantial structures of stone; the rest were simple pagliatti, or straw huts, such as are common in the remote mountain districts of the Italian peninsula. A forest of beech trees overshadowed the group, while the ridges around were covered with a thick growth of ilex and pine. A deep, dark tarn glistened in the centre, looking like some long-extinct crater, that acted as a reservoir for the rain and melted snow from the surrounding slope.
The stone houses could never have been built by the bandits. The straw cabins may have been erected to afford them additional accommodation; but the more substantial dwellings told of times long gone by, before the enervating influence of a despotic government had brought decay upon the territory of Italia. Some miner, perhaps, who extracted ore from the neighbouring mountains, had found here a convenient smelting-place in proximity to the tarn.