, the white muzzle of the ass stooping
down to sniff the water suspiciously, his hind-quarters tilted up
with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancrazio. And
the ass seemed to be taking the water. But no! After a long
deliberation he drew back. Angry language sounded through the
crystal air. The group with the lantern moved again upstream,
becoming smaller.

Alvina and Ciccio stood and watched. The lantern looked small up the
distance. But there--a clocking, shouting, splashing sound.

"He is going over," said Ciccio.

Pancrazio came hurrying back to the plank with the lantern.

"Oh the stupid beast! I could kill him!" cried he.

"Isn't he used to the water?" said Alvina.

"Yes, he is. But he won't go except where he thinks he will go. You
might kill him before he should go."

They picked their way across the river bed, to the wild scrub and
bushes of the farther side. There they waited for the ass, which
came up clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And
then they took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks.
Alvina felt the uneven scramble a great effort. But she got up.
Again they waited for the ass. And then again they struck off to
the right, under some trees.

A house appeared dimly.

"Is that it?" said Alvina.

"No. It belongs to me. But that is not my house. A few steps
further. Now we are on my land."

They were treading a rough sort of grass-land--and still climbing.
It ended in a sudden little scramble between big stones, and
suddenly they were on the threshold of a quite important-looking
house: but it was all dark.

"Oh!" exclaimed Pancrazio, "they have done nothing that I told
them." He made queer noises of exasperation.

"What?" said Alvina.

"Neither made a fire nor anything. Wait a minute--"

The ass came up. Ciccio, Alvina, Giovanni and the ass waited in the
frosty starlight under the wild house. Pancrazio disappeared round
the back. Ciccio talked to Giovanni. He seemed uneasy, as if he felt
depressed.

Pancrazio returned with the lantern, and opened the big door. Alvina
followed him into a stone-floored, wide passage, where stood farm
implements, where a little of straw and beans lay in a corner, and
whence rose bare wooden stairs. So much she saw in the glimpse of
lantern-light, as Pancrazio pulled the string and entered the
kitchen: a dim-walled room with a vaulted roof and a great dark,
open hearth, fireless: a bare room, with a little