As the dusk deepened they went scrambling up the hillside amid the birches, whose white stems glimmered upwards into the blue gloom of the twilight. Francesco's thoughts climbed ahead of him, hurrying to deal with the unknown dangers that might be awaiting him. He had to dismount, pull his steed after him; but the scramble upwards gave him the sense of effort and struggle that he needed. It was like scaling a wall to come to grips with an enemy, whose wild eyes and sword-points showed between the crenelations.
At last they had reached the high plateau. A dog barked. The wood suddenly swarmed with bearded and grotesque forms. They did not recognize in Francesco the monk who had spent a night in their midst. The goatherd had maliciously disappeared, as if to revenge himself for his interrupted orisons. With glowering faces they thronged around Francesco, a babel of voices shouting questions and threatening the intruder.
He waved them contemptuously aside, and his demeanor seemed to raise him in their regards.
At his request to be forthwith conducted into the presence of the duke, one pointed to a low building at the edge of the plateau. Wisps of smoke curled out of it and vanished into the night.
"The duke and the Abbot are at orisons," the man said with a grimace, the meaning of which was lost upon Francesco. "He will not return before midnight."
"I will await him here," said the newcomer, dismounting and leading his steed to a small plot of pasture, where the grass was tall and untrodden. Then, spent as he was, he requested food and drink, and as he joined the band of outlaws, listening to their jokes and banter, he thought he could discern among them many a one whom Fate had, like himself, buffeted into a life, not of his forming, not of his choice.