I left him calling for it, as I urged my nag across the snow and over the
narrow drawbridge. Beyond, I stayed a moment to look over my shoulder.
They stood gazing after me, a group of some half-dozen men, looking black
against the whiteness of the ground. Behind them rose the brown walls of
the rocca illumined by the flare of torches, from which the smell of
rosin reached my nostrils as I paused. I waved my hat to them in token
of farewell, and digging my spurless heels into the flanks of my horse, I
ambled down through the biting wind and drifting snow, into the town.

The streets were deserted and dark, save for the ray that here fell from
a window, and there stole through the chink of a door to glow upon the
snow in earnest of the snug warmth within. Silence reigned, broken only
by the moan of the wind under the eaves, for although it was no more than
approaching the second hour of night, yet who but the wight whom
necessity compelled would be abroad in such weather?

All night I rode despite that weather's foulness--a foulness that might
have given pause to one whose haste to bear a letter was less attuned to
his own supreme desires.

Betimes next morning I paused at a small locanda on the road to Magliano,
and there I broke my fast and took some rest. My horse had suffered by
the journey more than had I, and I would have taken a fresh one at
Magliano, but there was none to be had--so they told me--this side of
Narni, wherefore I was forced to set out once more upon that poor jaded
beast that had carried me all night.

It was high noon when I came, at last, to Narni, the last league of the
journey accomplished at a walk, for my nag could go no faster. Here I