Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/261

 her dragon. Saïd took a few stone walls and sunkened fences, which put him on good terms with himself. She was in no mood to spare him, or avoid any risks it might amuse him to run; and they had soon covered many more miles than she knew.

"Where are we?" she asked her groom, when Saïd slackened his pace at last.

The. groom, who was a Scotchman, had no idea and no power of asking.

"It does not matter," said his mistress, and rode on again.

They were on a tolerably broad road, with a village above them, on a steep green vine-clad hill; there were the usual olive orchards everywhere, with great almond trees full of blossom and white as driven snow, and farther still all around the countless curves of the many mountain spurs that girdle the valley of Floralia. There was another stone wall in front of them; beyond it the turf looked fresh and pleasant; she put Saïd at it, but someone from a distance called out to her in Italian, "For God's sake stop the horse!"