Explore "Adventures of the Comte de la Muette during the Reign of Terror" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I was back in the woods of Pierrettes, my precious satchel, still but two-thirds emptied, slung about my shoulders, my clothes wrinkled dry from their sopping in the waters of the Dordogne. All that day of my finding of the food had I lain concealed in the woods; but, with the fall of dusk, I made my way, by a long _détour_, to the river-bank, and crossed the stream swimming and in safety. And now was I again _la Grand' Bête_, seeking to trace in the scent of trodden violets the path by which my phantom Carinne had vanished.
That night I passed, warned by experience, in the branches of a tree. With dawn of the following day I was on foot again, striking northwards by the sun, and stretching over the encumbered miles with all the speed I could accomplish. I had a thought in my breast, and good fortune enabled me to put it to the proof. For, somewhere about four o'clock as I judged, I emerged into a woodland track that I felt convinced was the one made detestable by a dangling body; and sure enough I came of a sudden to the fatal tree, and was aware of a cut slack of rope hanging from a branch thereof, though the corpse itself was removed.