If it were some other household,
even then the name of Marcel de Bardelys should suffice to ensure
me a welcome.
By spurring and coaxing, I lured my steed into the river. There is
a proverb having it that though you may lead a horse to the water
you cannot make him drink. It would have now applied to my case,
for although I had brought mine to the water I could not make him
swim; or, at least, I could not make him breast the rush of the
stream. Vainly did I urge him and try to hold him; he plunged
frantically, snorted, coughed, and struggled gamely, but the current
was bearing us swiftly away, and his efforts brought us no nearer
to the opposite shore. At last I slipped from his back, and set
myself to swim beside him, leading him by the bridle. But even
thus he proved unequal to the task of resisting the current, so that
in the end I let him go, and swam ashore alone, hoping that he would
land farther down, and that I might then recapture him. When,
however, I had reached the opposite bank, and stood under the shadow
of the chateau, I discovered that the cowardly beast had turned back,
and, having scrambled out, was now trotting away along the path by
which we had come. Having no mind to go after him, I resigned myself
to the loss, and turned my attention to the mansion now before me.
Some two hundred yards from the river it raised its great square
bulk against the background of black, star-flecked sky. From the
facade before me down to the spot where I stood by the water, came
a flight of half a dozen terraces, each balustraded in white marble,
ending in square, flat-topped pillars of Florentine design.
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