As they moved away Uncle John said:  “Observe the difference between the cab-drivers here and those at home.  In America they fight like beasts to get a job; here they seem anxious to avoid earning an honest penny.  If there could be a happy medium somewhere, I’d like it.”

“Are we going to the best hotel?” asked Louise, who had seemed a trifle disconsolate because she had not seen Count Ferralti since leaving Naples.

“I don’t know, my dear.  It wasn’t a question of choice, but of necessity.  No other hotel seemed willing to receive us.”

They were now winding upward over a wonderful road cut in the solid rock.  It was broad and smooth and protected by a parapet of dressed limestone.  Now and then they passed pleasant villas set in orchards of golden oranges or groves of olives and almonds; but there was no sign of life on any side.

The road was zigzag, making a long ascent across the face of the cape, then turning abruptly to wind back again, but always creeping upward until an open space showed the station far below and a rambling stone building at the edge of the cliff far above.

“Behold!” cried Frascatti, pointing up, “the Grand Hotel Castello-a-Mare; is it not the excellenza location?”

“Has it a roof?” asked Uncle John, critically.

“Of a certainty, signore!  But it does not show from below,” was the grave reply.

At times Frascatti stopped his horses to allow them to rest, and then he would turn in his seat to address his passengers in the open victoria and descant upon the beauties of the panorama each turn unfolded.

“This road is new,” said he, “because we are very progressive and the old road was most difficulty.  Then it was three hours from the bottom to the top.  Now it is but a short hour, for our energy climbs the three miles in that brief time.  Shall I stop here for the sunset, or will your excellenzi hasten on?”

“If your energy approves, we will hasten,” returned Uncle John.  “We love a sunset, because it’s bound to set anyway, and we may as well make the best of it; but we have likewise an objection to being out after dark.  Any brigands around here?”

“Brigands!  Ah; the signor is merry.  Never, since the days of Naxos, have brigands infested our fair country.”

“When were the days of Naxos?”

“Some centuries before Christ, signor,” bowing his head and making the sign of the cross.

“Very good.  The brigands of those days must, of course, be dead by this time.  Now, sir, when you have leisure, let us hasten.”

The horses started and crept slowly upward again.  None of the party was in a hurry.  Such beautiful glimpses of scenery were constantly visible from the bends of the road that the girls were enraptured, and could have ridden for hours in this glorious fairyland.

But suddenly the horses broke into a trot and dragged the carriage rapidly forward over the last incline.  A moment later they dashed into the court of the hotel and the driver with a loud cry of “Oo-ah!” and a crack of his whip drew up before the entrance.