“But will it not be guarded?” I asked.

He hunched his shoulders.  “The Prince is no general.  A hundred times our enemies might have destroyed us; but they prefer to leave us alone.  It is more humiliating.”

Marc’antonio rode forward deep in thought, his chin sunk upon his breast.  At the summit, under the shadow of the great rock, he reined up, and slewing himself about in his saddle addressed Stephanu again.

“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.  The Princess commands us to make for the north; so we shall be obeying her, and at the same time we can bivouac close enough to take stock at sunrise and, maybe, learn some news of the camp—­yet not so close that our horses can be heard, if by chance one should whinny.”

“As to that you may rest easy,” Stephanu assured him.  “It is known that many of the farms below keep ponies in stable.”

From the pass we looked straight down upon another sea, starlit and dimly discernible, and upon slopes and mountain spurs descending into dense woodland over which, along the bluffs of the ridge, the lights of a few lonely hill-farms twinkled.  Stephanu found for us the track of which Marc’antonio had spoken, and although on this side of the range the shadows of the crags made an almost total darkness, our ponies took us down at a fair pace.  After thirty, or it may be forty, minutes of this jolting and (to me) entirely haphazard progress, Marc’antonio again reined up, on the edge of a mountain-stream which roared across our path so loudly as to drown his instructions.  But at a sign from him Stephanu stepped back and took my bridle, and within a couple of minutes I felt that my pony’s feet were treading good turf and, at a cry from my guide, ducked my head to avoid the boughs as we threaded our way down through an orchard of stalwart olives.

The slope grew gentler as we descended, and eased almost to a level on the verge of a high road running north and south under the glimmer of the moon—­or rather of the pale light heralding the moon’s advent.  Marc’antonio looked about him and climbed heavily from his saddle.  He had been riding since dawn.

I followed his example, though with difficulty—­so stiff were my limbs; picketed my pony; and, having unstrapped the blanket from my saddle-bow, wrapped it about me and stretched myself on the thin turf to munch the ration of crust which Marc’antonio doled out from his bag; for he carried our provender.

“Never grudge a hard day’s work when ’tis over,” said he, as he passed me the wine-skin.  “Yonder side of the mountain breeds malaria even in winter, but on this side a man may sleep and rise fit for adventure.”

He offered, very politely, to share his blanket with Stephanu, but Stephanu declined.  Those two might share one loyalty and together take counsel for it, but between them as men there could be no liking nor acceptance of favours.