Had found him, and remembering that the true key to a
forced march is to break the twenty-four hours into three pieces, and
now feeling the extreme heat, I went out along the burning straight
road until I found a border of grass and a hedge, and there, in spite
of the dust and the continually passing carts, I lay at full length in
the shade and fell into the sleep of men against whom there is no
reckoning. Just as I forgot the world I heard a clock strike two.
I slept for hours beneath that hedge, and when I woke the air was no
longer a trembling furnace, but everything about me was wrapped round
as in a cloak of southern afternoon, and was still. The sun had fallen
midway, and shone in steady glory through a haze that overhung Lake
Major, and the wide luxuriant estuary of the vale. There lay before me
a long straight road for miles at the base of high hills; then, far
off, this road seemed to end at the foot of a mountain called, I
believe, Ash Mount or Cinder Hill. But my imperfect map told me that
here it went sharp round to the left, choosing a pass, and then at an
angle went down its way to Lugano.
Now Lugano was not fifteen miles as the crow flies from where I stood,
and I determined to cut off that angle by climbing the high hills just
above me.
