himself in agony on his knees--a man's knees. I saw a man's hand
thrust through the paunch, ripping it asunder; and, struggling so, he
rolled slowly over upon his back and lay still. I stooped and tore
the mask away. A black-avised face stared up at me, livid beneath
its sunburn, with filmed eyes. The eyes stared at me unwinking as I
slipped his other hand easily out of its case, which, even at close
view, marvellously resembled the cleft narrow hoof of a hog. I could
not disengage him further, his feet being strapped into the disguise
with tight leathern thongs: but having satisfied myself that he was
past help, I turned on a quick thought to the gateway again, and ran.

A second hog--a real hog--lay stretched there on its side, dead as a
nail. Its companions, scampering in panic, had by this time almost
reached the head of the glade. Forgetting my promise to my father, I
started in pursuit. The thought in my mind was that, if I kept them
in sight, they would lead me to my comrades; a chance unlikely to
return.

The glade ran up between two contracting spurs of the hill. As I
climbed, the belt of woodland narrowed on either side of the track,
until the side-valley ended in a cross ridge where the chestnuts
suddenly gave place to pines and the turf to a rocky soil carpeted
with pine needles. Here, in the spaces between the tree-trunks, I
caught my last glimpse of the hogs as two or three of the slowest ran
over the ridge and disappeared. I followed, sure of getting sight of
them from the summit. But here I found myself tricked. Beyond the
ridge lay a short dip--short, that is, as a bird flies. Not more
than fifty yards ahead the slope rose again, strewn with granite
boulders and piled masses of granite, such as in Cornwall we call
"tors"; and clear away to the mountain-tops stretched a view with
never a tree, but a few outstanding bushes only. Yet from ridge to
ridge green vegetation filled every hollow, and in the hollow between
me and the nearest the hogs were lost.

I heard, however, their grunting and the snapping of boughs in the
undergrowth: and in that clear delusive air it seemed but three
minutes' work to reach the next ridge. I followed then, confidently
enough--and made my first acquaintance with the Corsican _macchia_ by
plunging into a cleft twenty feet deep between two rocks of granite.
I did not actually fall more than a third of the distance, for I
saved myself by clutching at a clema