He stroked the mare's sleek neck, wet and glistening with the dew, and, quickly mounting, swung her round to the bit and laid her beside me. It was not the time for talk, and we drew out of the clearing in single file, and, after forcing our way through the wet and shining leaves around us, found a bridle path. Along this my guide went at a trot. On either side of us the silent tree trunks stretched to an infinite distance in gloomy colonnades. Overhead, the boughs swayed and shook sadly; below, the dry leaves hissed and crackled. Once, when we had slackened pace for a moment, the sullen groaning of an old and very savage boar came to us, and we heard him grinding his tusks in his lair of juniper. At another time we surprised a number of deer in an open glade, and, startled by our sudden appearance, they dashed off with a wild rush into the forest, and then all was still. Beyond the glade the roadway widened, so that two might keep abreast, and down this we went at a gallop, to find ourselves once more in the endless aisles of the forest, passing through a ghostly light that barely enabled the horses to pick their way in and out amongst the huge moss-grown trees standing in measureless numbers around us, and where each pace took them fetlock-deep into the carpet of wet and withered leaves. Amidst the creaking of the boughs overhead, and the churn of the leaves at our feet, we rode on, nose to tail, Nicholas leading the way with unerring certainty. What his thoughts were, I knew not; but as I looked at the square outlines of the figure before me I could not but feel pity for this man, reduced to such a condition. True, the life of a common soldier was not such as to make a man squeamish about many things, but the ex-sergeant had always struck me as being a man of a different stamp to the generality of his fellows, and it was a thousand pities to see him forced to be a rogue; de Gomeron had truly much to answer for. But if I could I would mend this matter.