and it then
being past four o'clock, he shook me by the hand, and, without speaking,
left the wood. I never felt miserable during the whole time since we
were first put into prison at Toulon, till that moment, and, when he was
a hundred yards off, I knelt down and prayed. He had been absent two
hours, and it was quite dusk, when I heard a noise at a distance: it
advanced every moment nearer and nearer. On a sudden, I heard a
rustling of the bushes, and hastened under the blanket, which was
covered with snow, in hopes that they might not perceive the entrance;
but I was hardly there before in dashed after me an enormous wolf. I
cried out, expecting to be torn to pieces every moment; but the creature
lay on his belly, his mouth wide open, his eyes glaring, and his long
tongue hanging out of his mouth, and although he touched me, he was so
exhausted that he did not attack me. The noise increased, and I
immediately perceived that it was the hunters in pursuit of him. I had
crawled in feet first, the wolf ran in head-foremost, so that we lay
head and tail. I crept out as fast as I could, and perceived men and
dogs not two hundred yards off in full chase. I hastened to the large
tree, and had not ascended six feet when they came up; the dogs flew to
the hole, and in a very short time the wolf was killed. The hunters
being too busy to observe me, I had, in the meantime, climbed up the
trunk of the tree, and hid myself as well as I could. Being not fifteen
yards from them, I heard their expressions of surprise as they lifted up
the blanket and dragged out the dead wolf, which they carried away with
them; their conversation being in Dutch, I could not understand it, but
I was certain that they made use of the word "_English_." The hunters
and dogs quitted the copse, and I was about to descend, when one of them
returned, and pulling up the blankets, rolled them together and walked
away with them. Fortunately he did not perceive our bundles by the
little light given by the moon. I waited a short time and then came
down. What to do I knew not. If I did not remain and O'Brien returned,
what would he think? If I did, I should be dead with cold before the
morning. I looked for our bundles, and found that in the conflict
between the dogs and the wolf, they had been buried among the leaves. I
recollected O'Brien's advice, and dressed myself in the girl's clothes,
but I could not make up my mind, to go to Flushing. So I