FRANCESCO, having spent the night at a wayside inn, was astir with the breaking of the dawn. He saddled and bridled his horse for the day's journey, and having paid his reckoning, set his face to the west. The grass was drenched with dew, the woods towered heavenward with a thousand golden peaks, while down in the valley a rivulet echoed back the light, chanting sonorously as it leaped over the moss-grown boulders in its narrow bed.
Francesco was very solemn about the eyes that morning. He looked as one who had aged years in one night, and strove with might and main to forget the past. He watched the sun climb over the leafy hills of Velletri, saw the fleecy morning clouds sail through the heavens, heard the thunder of the streams. There was life in the day and wild love in the woods. Yet from the world of passion and delight he was an exile, rather a pilgrim, therein fettered by a heavy vow. He was to bear the Grail of Love through all these wilds, yet might never look thereon, or quench his thirst.
Through all the heavy morning hours Francesco fought and struggled with his youth. Ilaria's image floated by his side, robed in crimson and gold, her hair dazzled him more than the noon-day brightness of the sun. As for her eyes, he dared not look therein, but the disdainful laughter of her lips still echoed in his heart. The silence of the woods had bewitched his soul.
The towers and turrets of Camaldoli had faded behind him in the steely blue. On the distant horizon Tivoli towered ensconced among her cypress-groves. To northward the woods bristled under the relentless gleam of the sun, a glitter like blackened steel under a summer sky. The road wound under ancient trees. Many a huge ilex cast its gloom over the grass. The stone pine towered on the hills, above dense woods of beech and chestnut, and the valleys were full of primeval oaks, whose sinewy limbs stretched far over the sun-streaked sward.
As for Francesco, his mood partook of the silence of the hills. As the sun rode higher in the heavens, he came to a wilder region. A desolate valley opened gradually before him, steeped on every side with the black umbrage of the woods. A wind had arisen, brisk and eager as a blithe breath from the sea, and cloud shadows raced athwart the emerald dells.
Lost in reveries of the past, and brooding over what the times to come might hold for him, Francesco trotted on through a grove of birches, whose filmy foliage arabesqued the heavens. A glade opened to the road below. All around him were tall hills deluged with green woods. A stream glittered through the flats under elms and drooping willows.
Suddenly a half-score of mounted men rounded the angle of the road. They sighted the solitary traveller. At once they were at full gallop over the grass, swords agleam, lances pricking the blue, while the hot babel of their tongues echoed from the valley. Francesco, with a grim twist of the mouth, heeled on his horse and took to the woods.
The great trees overarched him, beams of gold came slanting through. The grass was a deep green under the purple shadows. Through the silence came the dull thunder of hoofs as the men cantered on, swerving and blundering through the trees. They rode faster than Francesco upon his tired steed, and the distance dwindled between the pack and the chase.
Onward Francesco fled. The black boughs grazed his head, the tree-trunks seemed to gallop in the gloom. He could see steel flashing through the wood, like meteorites plunging through a cloud.
Yet he hardly so much as turned his head, for his eyes were piercing the shadows before him. As he swayed along, he now heard a great trampling of hoofs in the woods. The nearest galloper swung out from the gloom. He was leaning over the neck of his horse, his lips parted over his teeth, his sword poised from his outstretched arm. The sword circled over Francesco's head, its whistling breath fanning his hair. He cowered; his horse swerved aside. The horse of his assailant stumbled over a projecting tree stump, hurling its rider over its head some six feet away upon the ground, where he lay stunned, dropping his sword in his fall. Like lightning Francesco leaped from his saddle, picked up the weapon, and remounted, just in time to ward off a vicious blow aimed at his head from a second horseman who had plunged from the thickets.