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The General lowered his eyes. "I regret to tell you, Princess, that your brother has fallen into our enemies' hands. They have carried him north, to Genoa, and with him the Priest who was his confessor. This I learned from your two heroes, who had entered Nonza with no other purpose than to rescue him, but had arrived too late. They shall be brought ashore, that you may question them.
"At last there came a day when, from a goatherd who brought us meat and wine from the next paese, we learned that a body of armed men, Corsicans, had pushed up to Olmeta, near by Nonza, to press the Genoese garrison there. Sir John, sick of waiting idle, proposed that we should travel back and help them, if only to fill up the time.
The Genoese tugged at the chain on his breast and drew forth a whistle. "Signore," he said quietly and with another side glance at the Prince, "I do not know your name, but mine is Andrea Fornari, and I command the Genoese garrison at Nonza. Having some inherited knowledge of the Corsicans, and some fifty years' experience of my own, I do not walk into traps.
"As I remember, there is a track below which branches off to the right, towards Nonza. It will take us wide of Olmeta and we can strike down into the lowland somewhere between the two.
"Last night," said I, and paused, wondering if indeed so short a while had passed; "theirs were the guns, off Nonza." She nodded, meeting my eyes for an instant only, and averting hers again to the horizon. To my dismay they were dark and troubled. "Not now not now!" she murmured hurriedly, almost fiercely, as I would have touched her hand.
Ahead of us, high on our right, rose the mountain ridges, scarp upon scarp, to the snowy peak of Monte Stella; low on our left lay Nonza, and beyond it a sea blue as a sapphire, scarcely rippled, void save for one white sail far away on the south-west horizon not the Gauntlet; for, distant though she was, I could make out the shape of her canvas, and it was square cut.
It comes from Nonza or thereabouts." "Then it is no affair of ours, even if we could reach it. But the flame yonder will lead us to my father." So we took the white glimmering high-road again and stepped out briskly, refreshed by sleep and the cool night air that went with us, blowing softly across the ridges on our right.
Our hopes, Princess, fell short of an event so happy. But I can say that every Corsican is glad, and would wish to be such a hero." "Did you, then, clear the Genoese from Nonza?" I put in hastily, noting the curl of my mistress's lips. "Sir, there were no Genoese to clear.
Let me say, sirs, that we heard your fire and saw Giraglia blazing, as far south as Nonza, where we were conducting a far meaner enterprise; and came north in wonder where Corsica had found such friends." "Say rather, sir, where my mother had found them," interposed the Princess, coldly. "Is this curiosity of yours all your business?" The General met her look frankly.
Nonza itself lay in the shadow of the shore with the early light shimmering upon its citadel and upper works a fortress to all appearance asleep: but the Genoese pickets would be awake and guarding the northward road for at least a league beyond, and to avoid them we must cross the high mountain spurs, using where we could their patches of forest and our best speed where these left the ridges bare.
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