Onward he rode as a man who has battled at night through a stormy sea. And ever as he rode his heart hungered for Ilaria, for that dusky head bowed down beneath the pathos of the past. He remembered her in a hundred scenes; her deep eyes haunted him, her rich voice pealed through the silent avenues of his thoughts. And while his lips moved in silent prayer that he might again look upon Ilaria's face, a dreary hopelessness bowed him down with the certainty that on earth they should meet no more. The moon had risen higher, and the forests spread their green canopies against her silver disk. Francesco shook himself free from the benumbing agony of his heart. A firm resolution was burning in his eyes; his very soul seemed enhaloed about his face, as he rode at breakneck speed through the silent forest-aisles. He was guided by the shadowy contours of the distant hills, for he had noted their shapes on that summer day, when he journeyed from Viterbo into Terra di Lavoro. To the west gaunt crags rose above the trees, towering pinnacles, huge and grim, natural obelisks cleaving the blue. It was past midnight when he saw water glimmering in a blackened hollow. The moon went down and the light went out of the world. Francesco tethered his steed to one of the giants of the forest and slept till the east was forging a new day in its furnace of gold. The gray mists of the hour before dawn made the forests gaunt like an abode of the dead. Francesco opened his eyes, heard the birds wake in brake and thicket. He saw the red deer scamper, frightened, into the glooms, and the rabbits scurrying among the bracken. The face of the sky grew gray with waking light, and the hold of the stars and of night relaxed on wood and meadow. The gaunt trees stood without a rustling leaf in a stupor of silence. A vast hush held, as if the world knelt at orisons. Soon ripple on ripple of light surged from the hymning east. About him rose the slopes of a valley, set tier upon tier with trees, nebulous, silent, in the hurrying light. His feet weighted with the shackles of an impotent fear, Francesco remounted his steed. About him the flowers were thick as on some rich tapestry; the scent of the dawn was as the incense of many temples. As he rode, his steed shook showers of dew from the feathery turf. Foxgloves rose like purple rods amid the snow webs of the wild daisy. Tangled domes of dog-rose and honeysuckle lined the blurred track, and there were countless harebells lying like a deep blue haze under the green shadows of the grass. Francesco had ridden for some hours and a craving for food began to assert itself. He had not touched a morsel since he had left Ilaria, and now he began to look about for some wayside tavern, the hut of a charcoal burner or some other evidence of human life. He began to fear that he had gone astray in the dusk of the forests, for not a sign did he encounter pointing to the camp of the duke.