turns a very cold shoulder upon its poor neighbours. It is, as a matter
of fact, the best house north of Calvi, and the site of it one of the
oldest. Its only rival is the Chateau de Vasselot, which stands deserted
down in the valley a few miles to the south, nearer to the sea, and
farther out of the world, for no high-road passes near it.

Beneath the Casa Perucca, on the northern slope of the shoulder, the
ground falls away rapidly in a series of stony chutes, and to the south
and west there are evidences of the land having once been laid out in
terraces in the distant days when Corsicans were content to till the most
fertile soil in Europe--always excepting the Island of Majorca--but now
in the wane of the third empire, when every Corsican of any worth had
found employment in France, there were none to grow vines or cultivate
the olive. There is a short cut up from the valley from the mouldering
Chateau de Vasselot, which is practicable for a trained horse. And
Colonel Gilbert must have known this, for he had described a circle in
the wooded valley in order to gain it. He must also have been to the Casa
Perucca many times before, for he rang the bell suspended outside the
door built in the thickness of the southern wall, where a horseman would
not have expected to gain admittance. This door was, however, constructed
without steps on its inner side, for Corsica has this in common with
Spain, that no man walks where he can ride, so that steps are rarely
built where a gradual slope will prove more convenient.

There was something suggestive of a siege in the way in which the door
was cautiously opened, and a man-servant peeped forth.

"Ah!" he said, with relief, "it is the Colonel Gilbert. Yes; monsieur may
see him, but no one else. Ah! But he is furious, I can tell you. He is in
the verandah--like a wild beast. I will take monsieur's horse."