"I'll tell you what; I beg you will not commence any of your long
orations."

"If I talk to you now, it is because I shall not be able in a few
minutes. Pay attention, therefore, to my instructions. Remain, I advise
you, behind this oak, then you will have nothing to fear, and be sure
not to leave it. I will place myself at the angle down yonder."

"Down there! Why you said you would not leave me for an instant."

"Come, come, don't be absurd; the moments are precious; you see I shall
only be distant an hundred yards."

"An hundred yards! I tell you what--if you go ten yards, I go too."

"What! are you afraid? We are alone; come, be frank."

"No! I am not afraid, but my nerves are shaken; I am thoroughly done up
with the scramble we have had through these woods; and then that rascal
Serpolet, who prophesied that I shall be opened like an oyster--you
shall not go, for I feel sure that when this brute of a boar makes his
appearance, I shall be unable to look him in the face."

"My dear friend, I will do as you desire. We have still half an hour to
wait; but remember, no imprudence--and if you should see my finger
raised, mind, not a word or a sign."

As I uttered this apostrophe, a long and harmonious note from the
head-keeper's horn, vibrating in the distance, came and died away upon
our ears; after which, a confused clamour of voices arose, and as
suddenly ceased.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" said I; "the _traqueurs_ are on the move, the curtain
is raised, the play is about to commence--and, dear friend, be silent as
death, for the actor will soon make his appearance on the stage."

During the next ten minutes, a murmur of voices and confused sounds were
again borne on the wind to the two sportsmen, announcing that the line
of beaters was steadily advancing, and now they could distinctly hear
them at intervals, striking the trunks of the trees with their long
iron-shod poles, thrusting them in the underwood, and shouting in chorus
the song of the boar.

Again the horn is heard; but now its notes are sharp, shrill, jerking
and hurried.

"That, my good Adolphe, denotes that the boar has risen, has been driven
from his lair, is in view, flying before the beaters, and I am very much
mistaken if he does not ere long pay us a visit."

Another blast is heard, but in very different tones to the last, and
silence is again spread over the forest.

"There, Adolphe--there's a joyous and melodious note; it tells me that
the