"
Pierre sadly waved his hand. "Yes, of course, I must warn him. But what a
painful task it is!"
Guillaume made no rejoinder, for at that very moment, in that remote,
deserted nook, where they could fancy themselves at the world's end, a
most extraordinary spectacle was presented to their view. Something or
rather someone leapt out of a thicket and bounded past them. It was
assuredly a man, but one who was so unrecognisable, so miry, so woeful
and so frightful, that he might have been taken for an animal, a boar
that hounds had tracked and forced from his retreat. On seeing the
rivulet, he hesitated for a moment, and then followed its course. But,
all at once, as a sound of footsteps and panting breath drew nearer, he
sprang into the water, which reached his thighs, bounded on to the
further bank, and vanished from sight behind a clump of pines. A moment
afterwards some keepers and policemen rushed by, skirting the rivulet,
and in their turn disappearing. It was a man hunt that had gone past, a
fierce, secret hunt with no display of scarlet or blast of horns athwart
the soft, sprouting foliage.
"Some rascal or other," muttered Pierre. "Ah! the wretched fellow!"
Guillaume made a gesture of discouragement. "Gendarmes and prison!" said
he. "They still constitute society's only schooling system!"
Meantime the man was still running on, farther and farther away.
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