They were standing in a patch of moonlight, just outside the shadow of the oaks. The two other men stepped back for an instant, while their comrade stooped, laughing, to lift Angelot. He was met by a lightning-like blow worthy of an English training, and tumbled over into the bracken. One of the two others fell flat in the opposite direction, and the prisoner vanished into the shadows of the grove. The third man dashed after him, but came into violent contact, in the darkness, with the trunk of a tree, and fell down stunned at the foot of it. By this time the chaise had slowly climbed the hill from a village in the further valley, where the post-boy had been refreshing himself and his horses. Simon stopped to scold him, then left his companion to keep guard over him, and himself mounted again the precipitous bit of stony lane which had once been the approach to the farm, and now opened on the wild moor. He whistled shrilly as he came, and then called in a subdued voice: "All right, men! Bring him down." There was no answer. He quickened his pace, and coming up under the oaks found the two fellows sitting on the ground rubbing their heads, staring vacantly round with eyes before which all the moonshiny world was swimming. Simon swore at them furiously. "What has happened, you fools? Where's Alexandre? Where is the prisoner? name of all that's--" "Devil knows, I don't," said the fellow who had paid dear for his good-humour. "That little gentleman is cleverer than you or me, Master Simon, and stronger too. He knocked us down like ninepins. Where is he? Nearly back at La Marinière, I should think, and with Alexandre chasing after him!" "Not so far off as that, I suspect," said Simon. "Up with you. He is hidden in this cover, and you have got to beat it till you find him. How did you come to let him escape, pair of idiots? You are not fit for your work." He went back a few yards, while the men scrambled to their feet, and whistled sharply for the one he had left in charge of the post-boy. Then he lighted a lantern, and they pushed at various points into the wood. The first discovery was that of Alexandre, lying senseless; they dragged him into the road and left him there to come to himself. Then they unearthed a wild boar, which rushed out furiously from the depths of the bracken and charged at the light, then bolted off across the moor. Smaller animals fled from them in all directions; large birds rustled and cried, disturbed in the thick foliage of the oaks, impenetrable masses of shade. "If we were to shoot into the trees? He may be hidden in one of them."