THE BLACK GHOST
OF THE HIGHWAY
_CHAPTER I_
The roads at the crossing were wide and smooth, with cool woods on
either side, but beyond them to the left rose the high, jagged,
yellow-and-black mass of the mountains, bare on their upper reaches, and
wooded in the shelter of the valleys, a splintered peak or two farthest
inland showing snowcapped even in August. They dominated the narrow
strip of fertile, hilly land between them and the sea, abrupt, savage,
Central European. One of the roads led up through a cloven valley and
was engulfed in it, the other ran more levelly along the sea coast. John
stopped while we stared. It was not the first time that we had stopped
in the last few days just to look at a landscape. The whole journey
through these lands of astounding languages and suddenly varying
costumes had been painted in opalescent sunlight and vivid shadows, but
since morning we had been nearing the mountains. Now we found ourselves
under them, but not yet in them, and two roads, equally wide and
enticing, led forward to unmarked destinations.
“It’s the road to the left,” I said, looking at the map. “It seems to
branch off about here, but it might be a little farther on. It’s hard to
tell with no markers.”
“Anyway, let’s not take it,” John objected. “Why pass up another day or
so of driving? You never know what you may find if you don’t know where
you’re going.”