posed that we were making for the actual summit; but on the
second terrace my captress bore away to the left and led us by a
track that slanted across the northern shoulder of the ridge.
A sentry started to his feet and stepped from behind a clump of arid
sage-coloured bushes, stood for a moment with the sun glinting on his
gun-barrel, and at a sign from the girl dropped back upon his post.
Just then, or a moment later, my ears caught the jigging notes of a
flute; whereby I knew Mr. Badcock to be close at hand, for it was
discoursing the tune of "The Vicar of Bray"!

Sure enough, as we rounded the slope we came upon him, Mr. Fett, and
Billy Priske, the trio seated within a semi-circle of admiring
Corsicans, and above a scene so marvellous that I caught my breath.
The slope, breaking away to north and east, descended sheer upon a
vast amphitheatre filled with green acres of pine forest and pent
within walls of porphyry that rose in tower upon tower, pinnacle upon
pinnacle, beyond and above the tree-tops; and these pillars, as they
soared out of the gulf, seemed to shake off with difficulty the
forest that climbed after them, holding by every nook and ledge in
their riven sides--here a dark-foliaged clump caught in a chasm,
there a solitary trunk bleached and dead but still hanging by a last
grip.

On the edge of this green cauldron the Corsicans and my comrades sat
like so many witches, their figures magnified uncannily against the
void; and far beyond, above the rose-coloured crags, deep-set in
miles of transparent blue, shone the snow-covered central peaks of
the island.

As I rounded the corner, Mr. Fett hailed me with a shout and a vocal
imitation of a post-horn.

"Another," he cried, and slapped his thigh triumphantly. "Another
blossom added to the posy! Badcock, my flosculet, you owe me five
shillings. Permit me to explain, sir"--he turned to me--"that Mr.
Badcock has been staking upon an anthology, I upon the full basket
and the whole hog. It is cut and come again with these Corsicans;
and, talking of hogs--"

His chatter tailed off in a pitiful exclamation as the
litter-carriers came around the angle of the ridge with Nat's body
between them.

"Poor lad! Ah, poor lad!" I heard Billy say. Mr. Badcock nervously
disjointed his flute. "I warned him, sir. Believe me, my last words
were that, being in Rome, so to speak, he should do as the Romans
did--"

"There is one more," announced the girl, to he