They had turned into a wide open space crossed by a few wire fences at vast intervals. The land was mostly rough pasture, or mere sandy rock and scrub. In the glowing west, towards which they journeyed, rose far purple peaks peering over the edge of the great tableland. To the east and south vast woods closed in the horizon.
The carriage left the main road and entered an ill-defined track leading apparently through private property.
'Ah! I remember!' cried Eleanor, starting up. 'There is the palazzo—and the village.'
In front of them, indeed, rose an old villa of the Renaissance, with its long flat roofs, its fine loggia, and terraced vineyards. A rude village of grey stone, part, it seemed, of the tufa rocks from which it sprang, pressed round the villa, invaded its olive-gardens, crept up to its very walls. Meanwhile the earth grew kinder and more fertile. The vines and figs stood thick again among the green corn and flowering lucerne. Peasants streaming home from work, the men on donkeys, the women carrying their babies, met the carriage and stopped to stare after it, and talk.
Suddenly from the ditches of the roadside sprang up two martial figures.
'Carabinieri!' cried Lucy in delight.
She had made friends with several members of this fine corps on the closely guarded roads about the Alban lake, and to see them here gave her a sense of protection.
Bending over the side of the carriage, she nodded to the two handsome brown-skinned fellows, who smiled back at her.
'How far,' she said, 'to Santa Trinità?'
'Un miglio grasso (a good mile), Signorina. È tutto. But you are late. They expected you half an hour ago.'