the trees on the farther side.

'In ten minutes he'll be over the border into Gerolstein,' said

Kuno. 'It's past cure.'

'Well, if he founders that mare, I'll never forgive him,' added the

other, gathering his reins.

And as they turned down from the knoll to rejoin their comrades, the

sun dipped and disappeared, and the woods fell instantly into the

gravity and greyness of the early night.

CHAPTER II - IN WHICH THE PRINCE PLAYS HAROUN-AL-RASCHID

THE night fell upon the Prince while he was threading green tracks

in the lower valleys of the wood; and though the stars came out

overhead and displayed the interminable order of the pine-tree

pyramids, regular and dark like cypresses, their light was of small

service to a traveller in such lonely paths, and from thenceforth he

rode at random. The austere face of nature, the uncertain issue of

his course, the open sky and the free air, delighted him like wine;

and the hoarse chafing of a river on his left sounded in his ears

agreeably.

It was past eight at night before his toil was rewarded and he

issued at last out of the forest on the firm white high-road. It

lay downhill before him, with a sweeping eastward trend, faintly

bright between the thickets; and Otto paused and gazed upon it. So

it ran, league after league, still joining others, to the farthest

ends of Europe, there skirting the sea-surge, here gleaming in the

lights of cities; and the innumerable army of tramps and travellers

moved upon it in all lands as by a common impulse, and were now in

all places drawing near to the inn door and the night's rest. The

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