Beppo twisted himself round to receive their admiration, laughing
with pride in his horse.
There was no answering laugh from the beautiful ladies. Their
eyes, fixed on him, seemed bigger than ever, and their faces against
the black of the night showed milky.
But here at least, once they were up the slope, were houses. The
rocks left off, and there were houses; the low wall left off, and there
were houses; the sea shrunk away, and the sound of it ceased, and the
loneliness of the road was finished. No lights anywhere, of course,
nobody to see them pass; and yet Beppo, when the houses began, after
looking over his shoulder and shouting "Castagneto" at the ladies, once
more stood up and cracked his whip and once more made his horse dash
forward.
"We shall be there in a minute," Mrs. Arbuthnot said to herself,
holding on.
"We shall soon stop now," Mrs. Wilkins said to herself, holding
on. They said nothing aloud, because nothing would have been heard
above the whip-cracking and the wheel-clattering and the boisterous
inciting noises Beppo was making at his horse.
Anxiously they strained their eyes for any sight of the beginning
of San Salvatore.
They had supposed and hoped that after a reasonable amount of
village a mediaeval archway would loom upon them, and through it they
would drive into a garden and draw up at an open, welcoming door, with
light streaming from it and those servants standing in it who,
according to the advertisement, remained.
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