ed a third time through the inside of the ring, like a
ribbon that had been rolled round it deliberately.

"It's a clear signal," said Perenna to himself. "The villain probably
stopped here to rest; and Florence, bound up; but with her fingers free,
was able to leave this evidence of her passage."

So the girl still hoped. She expected assistance. And Don Luis reflected
with emotion that it was perhaps to him that this last desperate appeal
was addressed.

Fifty steps farther--and this detail pointed to the rather curious
fatigue experienced by the scoundrel--there was a second halt and a
second clue, a flower, a field-sage, which the poor little hand had
picked and plucked of its petals. Next came the print of the five fingers
dug into the ground, and next a cross drawn with a pebble. And in this
way he was able to follow, minute by minute, all the successive stages of
the horrible journey.

The last stopping-place was near. The climb became steeper and rougher.
The fallen stones occasioned more frequent obstacles. On the right the
Gothic arches, the remains of a chapel, stood out against the blue sky.
On the left was a strip of wall with a mantelpiece still clinging to it.

Twenty steps farther Don Luis stopped. He seemed to hear something.

He listened. He was not mistaken. The sound was repeated, and it was the
sound of laughter. But such an awful laugh! A strident laugh, evil as the
laughter of a devil, and so shrill! It was more like the laugh of a
woman, of a madwoman.

Again silence. Then another noise, the noise of an implement striking the
ground, then silence again.

And this was happening at a distance which Don Luis estimated at a
hundred yards.

The path ended in three steps cut in the earth. At the top was a fairly
large plateau, also encumbered with rubbish and ruins. In the centre,
opposite Don Luis, stood a screen of immense laurels planted in a
semicircle. The marks of trodden grass led up to it.

Don Luis was a little surprised, for the screen presented an impenetrable
outline. He walked on and found that there had once been a cutting, and
that the branches had ended by meeting again. They were easy to push
aside; and it was through here that the scoundrel must have passed. To
all appearances he was there now, at the end of his journey, not far
away, occupied in some sinister task.

Indeed the air was rent by a chuckle, so close by that Don Luis gave a
start and felt as if the scoundrel