She smiled to herself, for she had never done such a thing before, but she was not uneasy in the company of her rough-looking escort.

She knew well enough that she was as safe with them as in her own house.
As the bridle-path wound up from the road, the country grew more rugged, the vegetation more scanty, and the stones more plentiful.

It was a wilderness of rocky desolation; as far as one could see there was no sign of humanity, not a soul upon the solitary road, not a living thing upon the desolate hills that rose on either side in jagged points to the sky.
Corona talked a little with the head-keeper who rode beside her with a slack rein, letting his small mountain horse pick its own way over the rough path.

He told her that few people ever passed that way.

It was the short road to Saracinesca.