Black and heavy clouds overhung the savage landscape--for savage it seemed, in its utter solitude. For the hour, the sky became preternaturally dark, and remained so till night deepened; and far in the hazy distance the ghastly green forked lightning flashed with weird splendour about the peaks of Mount Mezlanie, and the thunder boomed sullenly in the valleys below; and once or twice, when he obtained glimpses of the winding Morava, its current seemed increasing, as if in haste to leave the storm behind it. Then the heavy smoke-like rain came down with a species of roar on the earth, crashing through the foliage of the trees, for hours after the time that should have seen our wanderer safe within the outposts of Tchernaieff; but wild though the storm, he welcomed it as a means of concealing him from his pursuers, for he felt that if overtaken, his arm was yet so feeble as to make him rather helpless. He was compelled to ride slowly now, and with a firm hand on a shortened rein. The enormous pine trees towered skyward like giants, and seemed to assume something menacing in their aspect amid the gloom. Knotted and gnarled stems and roots also seemed to take the form of those grotesque monsters that figure in the forest through which Undine went; and in imagination perils mysterious and impalpable seemed to gather in the lonely path of Cecil, who was not without an active and fervid imagination. At last he reached what appeared to be the border of the woodlands he had been traversing; the pathway grew broader; lights glittered out of the obscurity, and he could make out the form of a two-storied house, which he at once approached. From the highway, as he supposed it to be, a modern gate gave access to a path through an orchard, as he eventually found, and in the centre thereof stood the house--the inmates of which, a Servian farmer and his family, received him with politeness rather than cordiality, and under the influence of the native distrust of all strangers, though he wore the brown Servian tunic of the patriotic army; but his pleasant and genial manner, and the fairness of his complexion won him favour, and while his horse was being stabled, he soon found himself installed before a wood fire, drying his sodden uniform, while the farmer's wife prepared some food, and her spouse endeavoured to describe the way he must pursue to reach the outposts of Tchernaieff, near Deligrad. The house was a snug one. A tile-paved entrance-hall gave access to a room off it with four shuttered windows; it was floored with red tiles; an iron stove stood in a corner, and all round was a divan covered with rugs and cushions. 'Well,' thought Cecil, as some food was set before him, 'there are worse things in this world than taking pot-luck with a Servian farmer!'