y of what the group of
bronze-faced men had proposed, namely, that they would undertake to
convey the diligence (without its horses, its "outsides," and its
"insides") bodily over a high, steep, slippery mule-bridge, which
crossed a torrent near at hand, now swollen to an unfordable depth and
swiftness. The four beheld this impassable stream, boiling and surging
and sweeping on to mingle itself with the madly leaping sea-waves out
there in the dim night-gloom to the left, as they descended from the
diligence and prepared to go on foot across something that looked like a
rudely-constructed imitation of the Rialto Bridge at Venice, seen
through a haze of darkness, slanting rain, faintly-beaming coach-lamps,
pushing and heaving men, panting led horses, passengers muffled up and
umbrellaed, conductor leading and directing. Then came the reharnessing
of the horses, the reassembling of the passengers, the remounting of the
"insides," the reclambering to his seat of the alert _banquette_
"outside" (after a hearty interchange of those few brief, smiling words
with his _coupe_ companions which, between English friends, say so much
in so little utterance at periods of mutual anxiety and interest), the
payment of the agreed-for sum by the conductor to the bronze-faced
pushers and heavers, amid a violent renewal of the storm of Genoese
jargon, terminated by an authoritative word from the payer as he swung
himself up into his place by a leathern strap dangling from the
coach-side, a smart crack of the postilion's whip, a forward plunge of
the struggling horses, an onward jerk of the diligence, and the final
procedure into the wet and dark and roar of the wild night.

The gas and stir of Savona came as welcome tokens of repose to the
toilsome journey; and the four alighted at one of the hotels there with
an inexpressible sense of relief. His fellow-travellers were warned,
however, by the alert gentleman, that they must hold themselves in
readiness to start before dawn next morning, as the conductor wished to
avail himself of the first peep of daylight in passing several torrents
on the road which lay beyond Savona. Velvet-cap assented with a grunt;
one of the sisters--all briskness at night, but fit for nothing of a
morning--proposed not to go to bed at all; while the other--quite used
up at night, but "up to everything" of a morning--undertook to call the
whole party in time for departure.

This she did,--ordering coffee, seeing th