As though he had been all the night wandering in search for this road, so soon as he saw it he cried, “Thank God, thank God!”
But something else may have been in his mind beyond the satisfaction of coming upon the road.
At the border of the wood where the track broadened out, there was a woodcutter’s rough shed. It was piled up with logs of various sizes, and with trimmed boughs awaiting the carts to come along the road to carry them away. He entered the shed, and, overpowered with weariness, sank down upon a heap of boughs; his head found a resting place in a forked branch and in a moment he was sound asleep.
His head was resting upon the damp bark of the trimmed branch, when it might have been close to that whiteness which he had seen through the window.
True; but his soul was saved.
He awoke, hearing the sound of voices around him.
The cold light of a gray, damp day was struggling with the light that came from a fire of faggots just outside, and the shed was filled with the smoke of the burning wood. The sound of the crackling of the small branches came to his ears with the sound of the voices.
He raised his head, and looked around him in a dazed way. He did not realize for some time the strange position in which he found himself. Suddenly he seemed to recall all that had occurred, and once more he said, “Thank God, thank God!”
Three men were standing in the shed before him. Two of them held bill-hooks in a responsible way; the third had the truncheon of a constable. He also wore the helmet of a constable.
The men with the bill-hooks seemed preparing to repel a charge. They stood shoulder to shoulder with their implements breast high.