rked
and snapped at his ankles. They hurried him outside the camp, and
thrusting him savagely with their spear butts sent him headlong. There
they left him, with the caution which he did not hear, being insensible,
that if he ventured inside the lines he would be at once hanged. Like a
dead dog they left him on the ground.

Some hours later, in the dusk of the evening, Felix stole from the spot,
skirting the forest like a wild animal afraid to venture from its cover,
till he reached the track which led to Aisi. His one idea was to reach
his canoe. He would have gone through the woods, but that was not
possible. Without axe or wood-knife to hew a way, the tangled brushwood
he knew to be impassable, having observed how thick it was when coming.
Aching and trembling in every limb, not so much with physical suffering
as that kind of inward fever which follows unmerited injury, the revolt
of the mind against it, he followed the track as fast as his weary frame
would let him. He had tasted nothing that day but the draught from the
king's cup, and a second draught when he recovered consciousness, from
the stream that flowed past the camp. Yet he walked steadily on without
pause; his head hung forward, and his arms were listless, but his feet
mechanically plodded on. He walked, indeed, by his will, and not with
his sinews. Thus, like a ghost, for there was no life in him, he
traversed the shadowy forest.

The dawn came, and still he kept onwards. As the sun rose higher, having
now travelled fully twenty miles, he saw houses on the right of the
trail. They were evidently those of retainers or workmen employed on the
manor, for a castle stood at some distance.

An hour later he approached the second or open city of Aisi, where the
ferry was across the channel. In his present condition he could not pass
through the town. No one there knew of his disgrace, but it was the same
to him as if they had. Avoiding the town itself, he crossed the
cultivated fields, and upon arriving at the channel he at once stepped
in, and swam across to the opposite shore. It was not more than sixty
yards, but, weary as he was, it was an exhausting effort. He sat down,
but immediately got up and struggled on.

The church tower on the slope of the hill was a landmark by which he
easily discovered the direction of the spot where he had hidden the
canoe. But he felt unable to push through the belt of brushwood, reeds,
and flags beside the shore, and the