“These people made us welcome (and I will say, gentlemen, once for all and in spite of what has happened to Master Prosper here, that there is no such folk as the Corsicans for kindness to strangers), but they told us we were on the wrong road.  By following the pass we should find ourselves in forest-tracks which indeed would lead us down to the great plain of the Niolo and across it to Corte, whence a good road ran north to Cape Corso; but our shorter way was the coast-road, which (they added) we must leave before reaching Calvi—­ for fear of the Genoese—­and take a southerly one which wound through the mountains to Calenzana.  They explained this many times to Sir John, and Sir John explained it to us; and learning that we were English, and therefore friends of liberty, they forced us to drink wine with them—­lashins of wine—­until just as my head was beginning to feel muzzy, some one called out that we were heroes and must drink the wine of heroes, the pride of Otta, the Invincible St. Cyprien.

“By this time we were all as sociable together as mice in malt, except that these Corsicans never laughed at all, but stared at us awsome-like even when the creature Fett put one foot on a chair and another on the table and made ’em a long tom-fool speech in English, calling ’em friends Romans and countrymen and asking them to lend him their ears, as though his own weren’t long enough.  Then they brought in the Invincible St. Cyprien, and Sir John poured out a glass, and sniffed and tasted it and threw up his head, gazing round on the company and looking every man full in the eyes.  I can’t tell you why, gentlemen, but his bearing seemed so noble to me at that moment I felt I could follow him to the death (though of course there wasn’t the leastest need for it, just then).  I reached out for the bottle, filled myself a glass, drank it off, and stared around just as defiant.  It gave me a very pleasant feeling in the pit of the stomach, and the taste of it didn’t seem calculated to hurt a fly.  So I took two more glasses quickly, one after the other; and every one looked at me with their faces very bright all of a sudden—­and the room itself grown brighter—­and to my astonishment I heard them calling upon me in English for a speech.  Whereby, being no public speaker, I excused myself and walked out into the village street, which was bright as day with the moon well over the cliffs on the other side of the gorge, and (to my surprise) crowded with people so that I couldn’t have believed the whole City of London held half the number, let alone a god-forsaken hole like Otta.  I stood for a while on the doorstep counting ’em, and the next thing I remember was crossing the street to a low wall overhanging the gorge and leaning upon it and watching the cliffs working up and down like mine-stamps.  This struck me as curious, and after thinking it over I made up my mind to climb across and discover the reason.”

“I fear, Billy,” said my uncle, “that you must have been intoxicated.”