three hours after noon
They tethered their horses in a grove of peaceful laurel and sheltering mulberry , at the foot of a slope that was set with olive trees , grey , gnarled and bent as aged cripples , and beside the river Esino at a spot where it was so narrow that an agile man might leap its width . Here , then , they spread their cloaks , and Zaccaria unpacked his victuals , and set before them a simple meal of bread and wine and roasted fowl , which to their hunger made more appeal than a banquet at another season . And when they had eaten they laid them down beside the stream , and there beguiled in pleasant talk the time until they fell asleep . They rested them through the heat of the day , and waking some three hours after noon , the Count rose up and went some dozen paces down the stream to a spot where it fell into a tiny lake -- a pool deep and blue as the cloudless heavens which it mirrored . Here he stripped off his garments and plunged headlong in , to emerge again , some moments later , refreshed and reinvigorated in body and in soul . As Fanfulla awoke he beheld an apparition coming towards him , a figure lithe and stalwart as a sylvian god , the water shining on the ivory whiteness of his skin and glistening in his sable hair as the sunlight caught it . `` Tell me now , Fanfulla , lives there a man of so depraved a mind that he would prefer a ducal crown to this ? ''