"Ah! ah!--good; that's the old gentleman who has led off the ball; the music of his rifle is not to be mistaken. The grisly vagabond has by this time two bits of iron in his flanks, which will considerably hasten his march. Silence! and be on the _qui vive_. Listen! Hear you not the distant crash in the bushes?" Two fresh shots were now fired, but nearer. "Said I not so? he is running the gauntlet--one more shot. Hush again! there he is, tearing along. Hark! not a whisper; your eye on the open, your ear to the wind, and your finger on the trigger!" But it was not the boar; for at the moment two roebucks and a fox broke near us, bounding along at full speed, when Adolphe, his face as pale as his cambric shirt, muttered, as he nearly fell upon his knees--"Oh! Paris--oh! Chevet--oh! Boulevard des Italiens--I shall never see ye more!" "Why, Adolphe! what the deuce is the matter with you? in the name of France, be a man. If my time is to be taken up with looking after you, I shall be in a nice situation. No nonsense--no useless fears? Do you, or do you not feel able to take part in the approaching drama?" "No, I don't--I only just feel able to get up this tree." "What! are you in such a funk as all that? Why, what a poor creature you must be! You are the very incarnation of fear!" "Fear? I have no fear. Who says that I have? I don't know how it is, but I certainly do feel something--a sort of qualm, something like sea-sickness--everything seems going round--no doubt a sudden indisposition--such a thing might happen to the bravest man--Napoleon, they say, was bilious at Borodino. We part for a few minutes only, dear friend; I shall ascend the oak--an English king once did the same." Another blast of the keeper's horn was now heard on the left. "What does that mean?" cried Adolphe, one leg in the air. "That signifies, the boar is making right for us." "Does it? Then I am up;" and, with the agility of a cat, he was in an instant safely lodged in the branches. "Ah! my friend! how different it feels up here--the sickness is quite gone off, hand me the gun." "In the name of Fortune," said I, "hold your coward tongue--here's the boar;" for I could now hear his snorting and loud breathing in the copse hard by. "Do you hear him?" said Adolphe from his perch, his cheeks as green as the leaves which covered him. "Hear him?" I exclaimed, "yes, I partly see him. What a monster! How he tears the ground!--how he bleeds and gnaws his burning wounds!--every hair of his back stands up, smoke and perspiration flow from his nostrils, and his eyes, glaring with agony and concentrated rage, look as if they would start from their sockets!"