At first the trail was broad and easy to follow. We had scarcely turned into the high road when we met some men, who told us enough to show that Livenza and his companion were on horseback, riding at a moderate pace, and were not more than a mile or two distant. We covered four or five miles at the gallop, stopping wherever we met anyone on the road to make inquiries; and it was soon abundantly clear that we were overtaking them fast. They seemed to be keeping to the high road, for what purpose or whither bound it was impossible to guess; nor did it matter much so long as we were rapidly closing up to them. Then the scent failed suddenly. We had rattled along for a couple of miles or so, and I was expecting to overtake them at any moment, when a carter whom we questioned declared that no one answering to the description had passed him. The news was serious indeed; it was now late, there were few people abroad; the sparsely-scattered houses and cottages were closed, and the inmates abed; we had passed more than one branch road; and thus the chances of our tracking them ran down to zero. We turned our horses’ heads, and at the first of the branch roads drew rein to confer. Rubio had no stomach for the work of further search, and was for doing no more until we could get sufficient help to continue the hunt vigorously the next morning in the daylight. This, no doubt, was a counsel of reason; but I was in anything but a reasonable mood, and would not listen to him—much to his disgust. "We know just about where they were last seen on the high road," I said. "They can’t ride about all night in these by-lanes; if they were making for any definite town they would have had to stick to the main road; and we must take these by-roads in turn, and ride a few miles along each of them. You follow the first, and I’ll take the next. We shall find them in that way." "It is useless, senor. We shall only wear ourselves and our horses out to no purpose," he protested; but I insisted, and sending him down the first lane, I rode on to the next, and dashed along it through the rain that was now falling in gusty, blusterous squalls. But I found nothing to help my search; not a soul did I see, not a cottage or building of any kind; and with something like a groan of disappointment, I pulled up at length, and began to retrace my steps. Then what might have been expected happened—I lost my way. Puzzled by the darkness I took a wrong turning which, instead of leading me back to the high road, brought me out by a rough zig-zag way on to a wild, bleak hillside, where it ended; and I was stranded, far away from any sign of a habitation, in the pitch darkness, with the wind howling round me and the rain falling in torrents.