The goatherd's inclination to invoke untold saints, whenever there seemed occasion and whenever there was not, was curbed by a hard line round Francesco's lips, and they plunged into the great silence. A sense of green mystery encompassed them, as they traversed the green forest-aisles. The sky seemed to have receded to a greater distance. Everywhere the smooth dark trunks converged upon one another, sending up a tangle of boughs that glittered in the soft sheen of the sunlight. Withered bracken stood in thin silence, and here and there a dead bough lay like a snake with its head raised to strike. The silence was immense, and yet it was a stillness that suggested sounds. It resembled the silence of a huge cavern, out of which came strange whisperings; innumerable crepitations seemed to come from the dead leaves. Francesco fancied he could hear the trees breathing, and from afar he caught the wild note of a bird. The sun was low when they came at last to the edge of the forest and saw a hill rise steeply against the sky. It was covered with silver birches, whose stems looked like white threads in the level light of the setting sun. And rising against the sky-line from amidst the fretwork of birch-boughs Francesco saw the well-remembered outlines of the ruined tower wherein he had spent a memorable night. The valley before them was flooded with golden light, and, as they crossed it, Francesco felt a curious desire for physical pain, something fierce and tangible to struggle with, to drown the ever-pulsing memory of the woman who had gone from him. As the dusk deepened they went scrambling up the hillside amid the birches, whose white stems glimmered upwards into the blue gloom of the twilight. Francesco's thoughts climbed ahead of him, hurrying to deal with the unknown dangers that might be awaiting him. He had to dismount, pull his steed after him; but the scramble upwards gave him the sense of effort and struggle that he needed. It was like scaling a wall to come to grips with an enemy, whose wild eyes and sword-points showed between the crenelations. At last they had reached the high plateau. A dog barked. The wood suddenly swarmed with bearded and grotesque forms. They did not recognize in Francesco the monk who had spent a night in their midst. The goatherd had maliciously disappeared, as if to revenge himself for his interrupted orisons. With glowering faces they thronged around Francesco, a babel of voices shouting questions and threatening the intruder. He waved them contemptuously aside, and his demeanor seemed to raise him in their regards. At his request to be forthwith conducted into the presence of the duke, one pointed to a low building at the edge of the plateau. Wisps of smoke curled out of it and vanished into the night. "The duke and the Abbot are at orisons," the man said with a grimace, the meaning of which was lost upon Francesco. "He will not return before midnight."