Explore "The Indian Scout" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The sun was setting as the Gambusinos reached the skirt of the forest and the limit of the covert. Before them, at a distance of about four miles, rose the city, amid the verdure of the plain, which formed a girdle of flowers and grass. The night fell rapidly, the darkness grew momentarily heavier, mingling all the varieties of the scenery in a sombre mass; the hour, in short, was most propitious for trying the bold experiment on which they were resolved. They whispered a last farewell to their comrades, and boldly entered the tall grass, in the centre of which they speedily disappeared. Fortunately for the adventurers, who would have found it impossible to find their way in the darkness, the tracks of horsemen and foot passengers proceeding to the city, or coming from it, had traced long paths, all leading direct to one of the gates. The two men walked along, side by side, for a long time in silence; each was thinking deeply on the probable results of this desperate tentative.
In the first moment of enthusiasm, they had dreamed but slightly of the countless difficulties they must meet on their path, and the obstacles which would doubtlessly at every moment rise before them; they had only regarded the object they wished to attain.