Brulette listened eagerly to the muleteer. She followed his eyes and all his gestures and entered into everything he said, without explaining to herself how such novel ideas and words excited her mind and stirred her heart. I felt rather touched by them, too (though I resisted somewhat), for Huriel had such an open, resolute face under all the blacking that he won folks in spite of themselves, just as when we are beaten at rackets by a fine player we admire him though we lose the stakes. We were in no great hurry to finish our supper, for certainly the place was dry, and when the fire burned down to a bed of hot ashes, the weather had grown so warm and clear that we felt very comfortable and quite ready to listen to the lively talk and fine ideas of the muleteer. He was silent from time to time, listening to the river, which still roared a good deal; and as the mountain brooks were pouring into it with a thousand murmuring voices, there was no likelihood that we could set forth again that night. Huriel, after going down to examine it, advised us to go to sleep. He made a bed for Brulette with the mule-pads, wrapping her well up in all the extra garments he had with him, and talking gayly, but with no gallant speeches, showing her the same interest and tenderness, and no more, that he would have shown to a little child. Then he stretched himself, without cushion or covering, on the bare ground which was well dried by the fire, invited me to do the same, and was soon as fast asleep as a dormouse--or nearly so. I was lying quiet, though not asleep, for I did not like that kind of dormitory, when I heard a bell in the distance, as if the _clairin_ had got loose and was straying in the forest. I lifted myself a little and saw him still where I had tied him. I knew therefore it was some other _clairin_, which gave notice of the approach or vicinity of other muleteers. Huriel had instantly risen on his elbow, listening; then he got on his feet and came to me. "I am a sound sleeper," he said, "when I have only my mules to watch; but now that I have a precious princess in charge it is another matter, and I have only been asleep with one eye. Neither have you, Tiennet, and that's all right. Speak low and don't move; I don't want to meet my comrades; and as I chose this place for its solitude I think they won't find us out." He had hardly said the words when a dark form glided through the trees and passed so close to Brulette that a little more and it would have knocked her. It was that of a muleteer, who at once gave a loud cry like a whistle, to which other cries responded from various directions, and in less than a minute half a dozen of these devils, each more hideous to behold than the others, were about us. We had been betrayed by Huriel's dog, who, nosing his friends and companions among the dogs of the muleteers, had gone to find them, and acted as guide to their masters in discovering our retreat.