m the heat. But by nightfall we were exhausted and had no idea
how far we had advanced northward. Just at dusk we came to reasonably firm
going and walked due north about a furlong. There, as the twilight
deepened, we encountered another stretch of ooze. We retreated from it a
dozen paces and camped under some swamp-maples on comfortably dry ground.
We ate about half of our food, bread, olives, and dried figs; and while
eating dried and warmed our feet and shanks at a generous fire of fallen
boughs, which Agathemer, who was clever with flint and steel, had made
quickly. When our feet felt as if they really belonged to us, we wrapped
ourselves in our cloaks and slept soundly.

We slept, indeed, so soundly, that it was broad day when, we waked. And we
waked to hear the wood ringing with the barking and baying of dogs and
with the cries of hunters and beaters. Instantly we realized that we were
in danger. For a hunt of such size as was approaching us must have been
gotten up by a coterie of wealthy land-owners; and such magnates, if they
caught sight of us, would at once suspect us of being runaway slaves. It
had been easy enough to pass ourselves off for farmerly cattle-buyers in
the Umbrian Mountains. But, habited as we were, camped in the depths of a
thick, swampy forest, we were sure to be suspected of being runaway slaves
by anyone who encountered us; and such gentry as organize big hunts with
swarms of beaters are always prone to suspect any footfarers of being
runaway slaves.

We hastily girded ourselves for flight, meanwhile reminding each other of
the story we had planned to tell if caught.

At first we seemed to have luck. We turned westwards away from the beaters
and found and passed the upper end of the morass which had stopped us the
night before. From there the going was good, through open underbrush,
beneath big beeches and chestnuts, over firm and gently rolling ground.
Stopping and listening we tried to judge by the sounds the location of the
line of beaters. We seemed to have a chance of getting beyond its western
end. We set off again; just as we started on nine deer dashed past us, a
big stag, two young stags and six does.

Then we did run, for we knew it was our last chance and, indeed, but
little further, a young wolf raced down a ferny glade, vanishing into some
alders on the further side of the glade. I nearly trod on a fleeing hare.
The beaters could not be far off.

Yet, for a bit, we seemed t