And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous gasps. It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy feline or canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more powerful organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or as if a fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate. At times this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as misshapenly, as the phantom of a nightmare. Now it was a square object moving sideways, endways, with neither head nor tail and scarcely visible feet; then an arched bulk rolling against the trunks of the trees and recoiling again, or an upright cylindrical mass, but always oscillating and unsteady, and striking the trees on either hand. The frequent occurrence of the movement suggested the figures of some weird rhythmic dance to music heard by the shape alone. Suddenly it either became motionless or faded away. There was the frightened neighing of a horse, the sudden jingling of spurs, a shout and outcry, and the swift apparition of three dancing torches in one of the dark aisles; but so intense was the obscurity that they shed no light on surrounding objects, and seemed to advance at their own volition without human guidance, until they disappeared suddenly behind the interposing bulk of one of the largest trees. Beyond its eighty feet of circumference the light could not reach, and the gloom remained inscrutable. But the voices and jingling spurs were heard distinctly. "Blast the mare! She's shied off that cursed trail again." "Ye ain't lost it agin, hev ye?" growled a second voice. "That's jist what I hev. And these blasted pine-knots don't give light an inch beyond 'em. D----d if I don't think they make this cursed hole blacker." There was a laugh--a woman's laugh--hysterical, bitter, sarcastic, exasperating. The second speaker, without heeding it, went on: "What in thunder skeert the hosses? Did you see or hear anything?" "Nothin'. The wood is like a graveyard." The woman's voice again broke into a hoarse, contemptuous laugh. The man resumed angrily: "If you know anything, why in h--ll don't you say so, instead of cackling like a d----d squaw there? P'raps you reckon you ken find the trail too." "Take this rope off my wrist," said the woman's voice, "untie my hands, let me down, and I'll find it." She spoke quickly and with a Spanish accent. It was the men's turn to laugh. "And give you a show to snatch that six-shooter and blow a hole through me, as you did to the Sheriff of Calaveras, eh? Not if this court understands itself," said the first speaker dryly. "Go to the devil, then," she said curtly. "Not before a lady," responded the other. There was another laugh from the men, the spurs jingled again, the three torches reappeared from behind the tree, and then passed away in the darkness.