th brushwood and fallen trees; he
scrambled over and through anyhow; he tore a path through the bushes and
plunged in. But his jacket caught in a branch; he had his knife out and
cut off the shred of cloth. Then with the bow and knife in one hand he
struck out for the opposite shore. His hope was that the gipsies, being
horsemen, and passing all their lives on their horses, might not know
how to swim. His conjecture was right; they stopped on the brink, and
yelled their loudest. When he had passed the middle of the slow stream
their rage rose to a shriek, startling a heron far down the water.

Felix reached the opposite shore in safety, but the bow-string was now
wet and useless. He struck off at once straight across the grass-lands,
past the oaks he had admired, past the green knoll where in imagination
he had built his castle and brought Aurora, through the brook, which he
found was larger than it appeared at a distance, and required two or
three strokes to cross. A few more paces and the forest sheltered him.
Under the trees he rested, and considered what course to pursue. The
gipsies would expect him to endeavour to regain his friends, and would
watch to cut off his return. Felix determined to make, instead, for
another camp farther east, and to get even there by a detour.

Bitterly he reproached himself for his folly in leaving the camp,
knowing that gipsies were about, with no other weapon than the bow. The
knife at his belt was practically no weapon at all, useful only in the
last extremity. Had he a short sword, or javelin, he would have faced
the two gipsies who first sprang towards him. Worse than this was the
folly of wandering without the least precaution into a territory at that
time full of gipsies, who had every reason to desire his capture. If he
had used the ordinary precautions of woodcraft, he would have noticed
their traces, and he would not have exposed himself in full view on the
ridges of the hills, where a man was visible for miles. If he perished
through his carelessness, how bitter it would be! To lose Aurora by the
merest folly would, indeed, be humiliating.

He braced himself to the journey before him, and set off at a good
swinging hunter's pace, as it is called, that is, a pace rather more
than a walk and less than a run, with the limbs somewhat bent, and long
springy steps. The forest was in the worst possible condition for
movement; the rain had damped the fern and undergrowth, and every