anning the stream, that, now swollen to an angry torrent,
brawled over a hundred yards of the road before us. Beyond, the ground
rose, and on its slope stood a farm-house up to its second story in
water. Without the slightest hope in his purpose and merely as an
experiment, Eccellenza suggested that a man should be sent in on
horseback; which being done, man and horse in a moment floundered into
swimming depths.

The conductor, vigilantly regarding Eccellenza, gave a great shrug of
desolation.

Eccellenza replied with a foreigner's broken shrug,--a shrug of
sufficiently correct construction, but wanting the tonic accent,
as one may say, though expressing, however imperfectly, an equal
desolation.

It appeared to be the part of wisdom not to go ahead, but to go back
if we could; and we reentered the water we had just crossed. It had
risen a little meanwhile, and the road could now be traced only by the
telegraph-poles. The diligence before us went safely through; but our
driver, trusting rather to inspiration than precedent, did not follow
it carefully, and directly drove us over the side of a small viaduct.
All the baggage of the train having been lodged upon the roof of our
diligence, the unwieldy vehicle now lurched heavily, hesitated, as if
preparing, like Caesar, to fall decently, and went over on its side
with a stately deliberation that gave us ample time to arrange our
plans for getting out.

The torrent was only some three feet deep, but it was swift and muddy,
and it was with a fine sense of shipwreck that Eccellenza felt his
boots filling with water, while a conviction that it would have been
better, after all, to have taken the steamer, struck coldly home to
him. We opened the window in the top side of the diligence, and
lifted the ladies through it and the conductor, in the character of
life-boat, bore them ashore; while the driver cursed his horses in
a sullen whisper, and could with difficulty be diverted from that
employment to cut the lines and save one of them from drowning.

Here our compatriot, whose conversation with the Englishman at the
Ombrone we had lately admired, showed traits of strict and severe
method which afterward came into even bolder relief. The ladies being
rescued, he applied himself to the rescue of their hats, cloaks,
rubbers, muffs, books, and bags, and handed them up through the window
with tireless perseverance, making an effort to wring or dry each
article in turn. The ot