I will spare the reader any description of the
town, and would only bid him think of Domodossola or Faido. Suffice it
that I found myself taken before the chief magistrate, and by his orders
was placed in an apartment with two other people, who were the first I
had seen looking anything but well and handsome. In fact, one of them
was plainly very much out of health, and coughed violently from time to
time in spite of manifest efforts to suppress it. The other looked pale
and ill but he was marvellously self-contained, and it was impossible to
say what was the matter with him. Both of them appeared astonished at
seeing one who was evidently a stranger, but they were too ill to come up
to me, and form conclusions concerning me. These two were first called
out; and in about a quarter of an hour I was made to follow them, which I
did in some fear, and with much curiosity.
The chief magistrate was a venerable-looking man, with white hair and
beard and a face of great sagacity. He looked me all over for about five
minutes, letting his eyes wander from the crown of my head to the soles
of my feet, up and down, and down and up; neither did his mind seem in
the least clearer when he had done looking than when he began.
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