Contrary to his usual deportment, Loyal Heart seemed affected by the most lively joy, his countenance beamed with cheerfulness, and he looked around him with complacency. Sometimes he would stop, and looked out ahead, appearing anxiously to seek in the horizon some object he could not yet discern. Then, with an expression of vexation, he resumed his journey, to repeat a hundred paces further on the same manoeuvre. "Ah, parbleu!" said Belhumeur, laughing, "we shall get there in good time. Be quiet, do!" "Eh, _caramba!_ I know that well enough; but I long to be there! For me, the only hours of happiness that God grants me, are passed with her whom we are going to see--my mother, my beloved mother! who gave up everything for me, abandoned all without regret, without hesitation. Oh, what happiness it is to have a mother! to possess one heart which understands yours, which makes a complete abnegation of self to absorb itself in you; which lives in your existence, rejoices in your joys, sorrows in your sorrows; which divides your life into two parts, reserving to itself the heaviest and leaving you the lightest and the most easy! Oh, Belhumeur, to comprehend what that divine being is, composed of devotedness and love, and called a mother, it is necessary to have been, as I was, deprived of her for long years, and then suddenly to have found her again, more loving, more adorable than ever! How slowly we get on! Every moment of delay is a kiss of my mother's which time steals from me! Shall we never get there?" "Well! here we are at the ford." "I don't know why, but a secret fear has suddenly fallen upon my spirits, an undefinable presentiment makes me tremble in spite of myself." "Oh, nonsense! Send such black thoughts to the winds; in a few minutes, we shall be with your mother!" "That is true! And yet I don't know whether I am mistaken, but it seems to me as if the country does not wear its usual aspect; this silence which reigns around us, and this solitude which environs us, do not appear to be natural. We are close to the village, we ought already to hear the barking of the dogs, the crowing of the cocks, and the thousand noises that proclaim inhabited places." "Well," said Belhumeur, with vague uneasiness, "I must confess that everything seems strangely silent around us." The travellers came to a spot where the river makes a sharp curve; being deeply embanked, and skirted by immense blocks of rock and thick copsewood, it did not allow any extensive view. The village towards which the travellers were directing their course, was scarcely a gunshot from the ford where they were preparing to cross the river, but it was completely invisible, owing to the peculiar nature of the country. At the moment the horses placed their feet in the water, they made a sudden movement backwards, and the bloodhounds uttered one of those plaintive howlings peculiar to their race, which freeze the bravest man with terror.