So I sat buried in thought, not knowing what to do, when all at once
we turned aside from the highway. I shouted to the postilion to ask
him where he was going, but, shout as I would, the fellow never made
any answer save "_Si, si, Signore_!" and on he drove over stock and
stone till I was jolted from side to side in the carriage.
I was not at all pleased, for the high-road ran through a charming
country, directly toward the setting sun, which was bathing the
landscape in a sea of splendor, while before us, when we turned aside,
lay a dreary hilly region, broken by ravines, where in the gray depths
darkness had already set in. The further we drove, the lonelier and
drearier grew the road. At last the moon emerged from the clouds, and
shone through the trees with a weird, unearthly brilliancy. We had
to go very slowly in the narrow rocky ravines, and the continuous,
monotonous rattle of the carriage reechoed from the walls on either
side, as if we were driving through a vaulted tomb. From the depths
of the forest came a ceaseless murmur of unseen water-falls, and the
owlets hooted in the distance "Come too! come too!" As I looked at the
driver, I noticed for the first time that he wore no uniform and was
not a postilion; he seemed to be growing restless, turning his head
and looking behind him several times. Then he began to drive quicker,
and as I leaned out of the carriage a horseman came out of the
shrubbery on one side of the road, crossed it at a bound directly in
front of our horses, and vanished in the forest on the other side.
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