A series of exciting adventures that befell me four years ago were
remarkable and puzzling. Until quite recently, I have regarded the
mystery as impenetrable. Indeed, in this _fin-de-siecle_ decade it is
somewhat difficult to comprehend that such events could have occurred,
or that the actors could have existed in real life.
I was in Piedmont, at the little village of Bardonnechia, a quaint,
rural place comprising a few picturesque chalets, an inn, and a church
with a bulgy spire, which nestles in the fertile valley at the foot of
the towering, snow-capped Mont Cenis. I was staying at the inn, and I
wished to go to Lanslebourg, on the opposite side of the mountain,
intending to travel thence by diligence to Grenoble, where I had
arranged to meet some friends. But I needed a guide. The by-paths in
the Cottian Alps are rough and intricate, and he would be a daring
spirit who would venture to cross the Cenis alone away from the beaten
track.
There was not a single mule to be hired, and the only guide I could find
refused to carry my valise, so I was in danger of missing my
appointment. I could, of course, have gone by train through the tunnel
to Modane, but that route would have taken me many miles out of my way,
therefore I had decided upon the shorter road.
At evening, while I stood at dusk at the door of the inn, looking
anxiously to see whether any guide or porter had returned from the
mountains the innkeeper told me he had found a man.
"Does he come from the valley?" I asked.
"No, signore; from the mountains."
"Impossible? I should have seen him. I have been watching the path for
an hour."
"This man does not follow the same path as the others."
"Why?"
But my host vouchsafed no further explanation; he only called with a
loud voice, "Giovanni!"
The guide appeared. He was tall, muscular, and rather strange-looking,
about thirty years old, the wrinkles of his face giving an expression of
hard and energetic will. He had a large, straight nose, wide mouth,
thick, bushy black hair, and a beard of several days' growth, while in
his cap he wore a sprig of freshly-plucked edelweiss.