"near" and the "far" side--into two peoples, speaking a different
dialect, following slightly different customs, and only finding
themselves united in the presence of a common foe. The road mounts
steadily, and this February morning had broken grey and cloudy, so that
the colonel found himself in the mists that hang over these mountains
during the spring months, long before he reached the narrow entrance to
the grim and soundless Lancone Defile. The heavy clouds had nestled down
the mountains, covering them like a huge thickness of wet cotton-wool.
The road, which is little more than a mule-path, is cut in the face of
the rock, and, far below, the river runs musically down to Lake Biguglia.
The colonel rode alone, though he could perceive another traveller on the
winding road in front of him--a peasant in dark clothes, with a huge felt
hat, astride on a little active Corsican horse--sure of foot, quick and
nervous, as fiery as the men of this strange land.

The defile is narrow, and the sun rarely warms the river that runs
through the depths where the foot of man can never have trodden since God
fashioned this earth. Colonel Gilbert, it would appear, was accustomed to
solitude. Perhaps he had known it so well during his sojourn in this
island of silence and loneliness, that he had fallen a victim to its
dangerous charms, and being indolent by nature, had discovered that it is
less trouble to be alone than to cultivate the society of man. The
Lancone Defile has to this day an evil name. It is not wise to pass
through it alone, for some have entered one end never to emerge at the
other. Colonel Gilbert pressed his heavy charger, and gained rapidly on
the horseman in front of him. When he was within two hundred yards of
him, at the highest part of the pass and through the narrow defile, he
sought in the inner pocket of his tunic--for in those days French
officers possessed no other clothes than their uniform--and produced a
letter. He examined it, crumpled it between his fingers, and rubbed it