the puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the gray; but, indeed, I made a text
of that and talked. There, you know, was the rock, still beautiful for all its scars, with its
countless windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet, a vast carving of
gray, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon and orange groves, and masses of agave and
prickly pear, and puffs of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over the
Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round the cape and within sight
of the mainland, another little string of boats came into view, driving before the wind
towards the south-west. In a little while a multitude had come out, the remoter just little
specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward cliff.
"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness of war.'
"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across the southern sky we
did not heed it. There it was--a line of little dots in the sky--and then more, dotting the
south-eastern horizon, and then still more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled with
blue specks. Now they were all thin little strokes of blue, and now one and now a multitude
would heel and catch the sun and become short flashes of light. They came, rising and
falling and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls or rooks or such-like birds,
moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever as they drew nearer they spread over a
greater width of sky. The southward wind flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart the
sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and streamed eastward, growing
smaller and smaller and clearer and clearer again until they vanished from the sky. And
after that we noted to the northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines hanging
high over Naples like an evening swarm of gnats.
"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds.
"Even the mutter of guns far away in the south-east seemed to us to signify nothing . . .
"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seeking that refuge where we
might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, pain and many distresses. For though we
were dusty and stained by our toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the horror of the
dead men we had seen and the flight of the peasants--for very soon a gust of fighting swept
up the peninsula--with these things haunting our minds it still resulted only in a deepening
resolution to escape. Oh, but she was brave and patient! She who had never faced hardship
and exposure had courage for herself and me. We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a
country all commandeered and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we went on
foot. At first there were other fugitives, but we did not mingle with them. Some escaped
northward, some were caught in the torrent of peasantry that swept along the main roads;
many gave themselves into the hands of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the
men were impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no money to
bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands of these conscript crowds. We
had landed at Salerno, and we had been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross
towards Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back for want of
food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum, where those great temples
stand alone. I had some vague idea that by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or
something, and take once more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us.
"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were being hemmed in; that