As they ran to the place where the mule was tied to an old ring in the crumbling wall of a half-ruined house near to the ascent to the castle, the man told Nino that the fine gentleman had ridden toward Trevi, down the valley, Nino mounted, and hastened in the same direction.
As he rode he reflected that it would be wiser to meet the count on his return, and pass him after the interview, as though going away from Fillettino.

It would be a little harder for the mule; but such an animal, used to bearing enormous burdens for twelve hours at a stretch, could well carry Nino only a few miles of good road before sunset, and yet be fresh again by midnight.

One of those great sleek mules, if good-tempered, will tire three horses, and never feel the worse for it.

He therefore let the beast go her own pace along the road to Trevi, winding by the brink of the rushing torrent: sometimes beneath great overhanging cliffs, sometimes through bits of cultivated land, where the valley widens; and now and then passing under some beech-trees, still naked and skeleton-like in the bright March air.
But Nino rode many miles, as he thought, without meeting the count, dangling his feet out of the stirrups, and humming snatches of song to himself to pass the time.

He looked at his watch,--a beautiful gold one, given him by a very great personage in Paris,--and it was half-past two o'clock.