The clock struck in both places at the same time. The traveller counted eleven strokes.
After crossing the road from Lyons to Bourg, the traveller found himself, as the fisherman had said, on the banks of a little river. His horse reached the other side with two strides, and when there he saw before him a plain about two hundred yards wide, bounded by a dark line, which he had been told was the forest. He spurred his horse straight for it.
Ten minutes later he was riding along a country road which skirted the forest in its whole length. There he stopped a moment and looked around him. He did not hesitate to give the signal agreed upon, but he wished to make sure that he was alone. The silence of the night is at times so intense that the most daring men respect it, unless they are forced to break it. For a moment then, as we have said, our traveller looked and listened, but he neither saw nor heard anything. He put his hand to his mouth and whistled thrice with the handle of his whip, the first and last being strong and resonant, the second tremulous, like a boatswain's whistle. The sound was lost in the depths of the forest, but no sound, either similar or dissimilar, replied to it. While he listened, midnight struck at Bourg, and was repeated by all the clocks of the neighborhood. The traveller repeated the signal a second time, and again silence was his only answer.
Then he seemed to make up his mind, and following the country road until he came to one at right angle with it, he resolutely plunged into the latter; ten minutes later he came to another, which crossed it again, and following this crossroad, he bore to the left, and five minutes later was out of the forest.
A dark mass rose before him some two hundred yards away, which was doubtless the goal of his journey. As he approached it he studied certain details to make sure that this was really the old Chartreuse before him.
At last he stopped before a great portal surmounted by three statues, those of the Virgin, of Our Lord, and of Saint John the Baptist. The statue of the Virgin, placed directly over the door, formed the apex of the triangle. The two others came down to the cross-piece, forming the branch of the stone cross, in which a double door of massive oak was set, which, more fortunate than certain other portions of the frontal, and more particularly the windows on the first floor, seemed to have survived the ravages of time.
"Here it is," said the traveller; "and now to see which of the three statues is that of Saint John."