The only thing the ladies said, and
they repeated it at regular intervals, even after they had started,
gently prodding him as he sat on his box to call his attention to it,
was, "San Salvatore?"
And each time he answered vociferously, encouragingly, "Si, si--
San Salvatore."
"We don't know of course if he's taking us there," said Mrs.
Arbuthnot at last in a low voice, after they had been driving as it
seemed to them a long while, and had got off the paving-stones of the
sleep-shrouded town and were out on a winding road with what they could
just see was a low wall on their left beyond which was a great black
emptiness and the sound of the sea. On their right was something close
and steep and high and black--rocks, they whispered to each other; huge
rocks.
They felt very uncomfortable. It was so late. It was so dark.
The road was so lonely. Suppose a wheel came off. Suppose they met
Fascisti, or the opposite of Fascisti. How sorry they were now that
they had not slept at Genoa and come on the next morning in daylight.
"But that would have been the first of April," said Mrs. Wilkins,
in a low voice.
"It is that now," said Mrs. Arbuthnot beneath her breath.
"So it is," murmured Mrs. Wilkins.
They were silent.
Beppo turned round on his box--a disquieting habit already
noticed, for surely his horse ought to be carefully watched--and again
addressed them with what he was convinced was lucidity--no patois, and
the clearest explanatory movements.
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