Never
have I slept so heavily, yet never perhaps beneath so cold a tester.
Sunbeams streaming between the crests of the cypresses awoke me. I
leapt up as if a hundred sentinels had shouted--where none kept
visible watch.
An odour of a languid sweetness pervaded the air. There was no wind to
stir the dew-besprinkled trees. The old, scarred gravestones stood in
a thick sunshine, afloat with bees. But Rosinante had preferred to
survey sunshine out of shade. In lush grass I found her, the picture
of age, foot crook'd, and head dejected.
Yet she followed me uncomplaining along these narrow avenues of
silence, and without more ado turned her trivial tail on Death and his
dim flocks, and well-nigh scampered me off into the vivid morning.
Soon afterwards, with Hunger in the saddle, we began to climb a road
almost precipitous, and stony in the extreme. Often enough we breathed
ourselves as best we could in the still, sultry air, and rested on the
sun-dappled slopes. But at length we came out upon the crest, and
surveyed in the first splendour of day a region of extraordinary
grandeur.
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