s, reddening bramble, and rusty bracken,
tangled together in a coarse rank curtain of vegetation, quite still and
motionless (but for the breeze among the upper leaves), and the sombre
distance, dark with pine, had the mystery of a vault. It was difficult
to believe his pursuers harboured there, perhaps reloading the weapon
that had put so doleful a conclusion to his travels with the gallant
little horse he had bought on the coast of Fife. That silence, that
prevailing mystery, seemed to be the essence and the mood of this land,
so different from his own, where laughter was ringing in the orchards
and a myriad towns and clamant cities brimmed with life.

CHAPTER II -- THE PURSUIT

Nobody who had acquaintance with Victor de Montaiglon would call
him coward. He had fought with De Grammont, and brought a wound from
Dettingen under circumstances to set him up for life in a repute for
valour, and half a score of duels were at his credit or discredit in the
chronicles of Paris society.

And yet, somehow, standing there in an unknown country beside a brute
companion wantonly struck down by a robber's shot, and the wood so
still around, and the thundering sea so unfamiliar, he felt vastly
uncomfortable, with a touch of more than physical apprehension. If the
enemy would only manifest themselves to the eye and ear as well as to
the unclassed senses that inform the instinct, it would be much more
comfortable. Why did they not appear? Why did they not follow up their
assault upon his horse? Why were they lurking in the silence of the
thicket, so many of them, and he alone and so obviously at their mercy?
The pistols he held provided the answer.

"What a rare delicacy!" said Count Victor, applying himself to the
release of his mail from the saddle whereto it was strapped. "They would
not interrupt my regretful tears. But for the true elan of the trade of
robbery, give me old Cartouche picking pockets on the Pont Neuf."

While he loosened the bag with one hand, with the other he directed at
the thicket one of the pistols that seemed of such wholesome influence.
Then he slung the bag upon his shoulder and encouraged the animal to get
upon its legs, but vainly, for the shot was fatal.

"Ah!" said he regretfully, "I must sacrifice my bridge and my good
comrade. This is an affair!"

Twice--three times, he placed the pistol at the horse's head and as
often withdrew it, reluctant, a man, as all who knew him wondered at,
gent