So we went on through the night, taking at every forking of the road the way which led nearest the west, for in the west lay safety. But I knew we had ten leagues and more to cover ere we should reach the Bocage, and the nearer we approached our destination the more closely would danger encompass us. From south and east troops were being massed to crush out by sheer weight of numbers the flame of insurrection which had arisen so suddenly in the very heart of France. From every town within fifty leagues the National Guard had been summoned. From Paris itself levies were hastening--levies of Septembrists, cut-throats, assassins, asking nothing better than permission to murder and pillage, and commanded by a general determined not to fight but to destroy, not to defeat but to exterminate--in a word, not to rest until all Vendée had been made a wilderness, a barren waste. This line of enemies, marching forward in this temper, we were forced to pierce in order to reach our friends. The moon rose high in the heavens, paused at the zenith, then started on its course down the western sky. I thanked the fortune which gave us her friendly light to guide us, for the road grew ever more wild and rough. In one place indeed it was merely the bed of a torrent little different from that over which we had already toiled so painfully. So we left it, and breaking our way through the hedge which bordered the road, followed along beside it. Even I was beginning to feel fatigued and I could guess at my companion’s weariness, yet she refused to listen to my suggestion that we stop and rest. But dawn was not far distant and we must find some safe hiding-place for the day. There were no houses in sight, nor had we seen any for some time, but where there was a road, however bad, there must also be people to travel it; and to seek rest, to resign oneself to sleep, save in a safe covert, would be the height of folly. The country had grown more open and level with only an occasional tree here and there, and was evidently used for pasturage, though I saw no sheep nor cattle; but at last along a ridge at our right I caught sight of a thicket, and toward this we made our way. We found it a dense growth of small saplings and underbrush and broke our way into it with difficulty; but the event repaid the labor, for at last we came to a little glade not over a rod across and carpeted with grass. “Here is our resting-place,” I said, “and our home for another day.” My companion sank down with a sigh of utter fatigue. “I am very tired,” she murmured, and drew off the shoes which I had slipped over her own. “You are to sleep until you are quite rested,” I added. “We will remain here until evening. Then, after darkness falls and before the moon is up, we shall try to pierce the lines of the Republicans, which cannot be far away. For that you must be fresh, for we may need to be fleet.” “But you?” she broke in quickly. “You are going to sleep too?”