He is a man of cunning and
resource and ferocity. We shall want our best wits and our best
swordsmanship if we are to cope with him."
Tom's eyes sparkled with excitement and joy.
"And is the mountain pass the only way of getting into Italy, for I
have heard that Savoy lies in that land?" said Tom.
"Ay; Italy has had its strange vicissitudes of fortune, and has
been divided and redivided into duchies and kingdoms, till it needs
a clever scholar to tell her history aright. But it is enough for
our purpose that Savoy lies just beneath those grim mountains which
we must scale; and that for the present no other entrance is
possible."
"But there are other ways then?"
"Why, yes, we could at other times go by sea; but now that the
Spaniards are seeking to win back the rock of Gibraltar, which we
have lately reft from them, and which Marlborough says must never
be yielded up again, we cannot safely try that way; for we might
well fall into the hands of some Spanish vessel, and languish,
unknown and uncared for, in Spanish dungeons. We cannot travel
through France, and reach it from the shores of Genoa; because it
were too great peril for Englishmen to ride through the dominions
of the French monarch. So we must needs land at some friendly Dutch
port, and ride through their country, and so into Westphalia, and
thence to these mountain regions which cut us off from our
destination.
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