"Hark! hark!
Pretty lark!—"
Boom! Far in the distance sounded the discharge of a cannon—its iron voice the antithesis to the poet's dainty pastoral. As the report reverberated over the valley, from the grass innumerable insects arose; the din died away; the disturbed earth-dwellers sank back to earth again. The song ceased from the young girl's lips, and, gazing quickly back, she could just distinguish, above one of the parapets of the château, a wreath, already nearly dissolved in the blue of the sky. The jester, who had also turned in his saddle, met her look of inquiry.
"It sounds like a signal of some kind—a salute, perhaps," he said.
"Or a call to arms?" she suggested, and he made no answer. "It means—pursuit!"
Silent they rode on, but more rapidly. With pale face and composed mien she kept by his side; her resolute expression reassured him, while her glance said: "Do not fear for me." Gradually had they been descending from the higher slopes of the country of which the château-mount was the loftiest point and now were passing through the lower stretches of land.
Here, the highway ran above fields, inundated by recent rains, and marshes converted into shining lakes. Out of the water uprose a grove of trees, spectral-like; screaming wild-fowl skimmed the surface, or circled above. The pastoral peace of the meadows, garden of the wild flower and home of the song-bird, was replaced by a waste of desolation and wilderness. Long they dashed on through the loneliness of that land; a depressing flight—but more depressing than the abandoned and forlorn aspect of the scene was the consciousness that their steeds had become road-worn and were unable to respond. Long, long, they continued this pace, a strained period of suspense, and then the fool drew rein.
"Look, Jacqueline," he said. "The river!"
Before them, fed by the rivulets from the distant hills, the foaming current threatened to overflow its banks. Already the rising waters touched the flimsy wooden structure that spanned the torrent. Contemplatively he regarded it, and then placing his hand for a moment on hers, said encouragingly:
"Perhaps, after all, we are borrowing trouble?"
She shook her head. "If I could but think it," she answered. Something seemed to rise in her throat. "A moment I forgot, and—was not unhappy! But now I feel as though the end was closing about us."