"How so?"
"Hang it! That is clear enough, we are not at the season when trees lose their leaves: hence they did not fall."
"Why so?"
"Because, if they had, they would be yellow and dry, and instead they are green, crumpled, and some are even torn; hence it is positive, I think, that they have been removed from the tree by violence."
"That is true," Don Miguel muttered, his surprise at its height.
"Now, let us seek what unknown force tore them from the tree."
While saying this, Valentine had begun walking on, with his body bent to the ground, in the direction where he had seen the black line. His friends imitated his movements and followed him, also looking carefully on the ground. All at once Valentine stooped, picked up a piece of bark about the size of half his hand, and showed it to Don Miguel.
"All is explained to me now," he said: "look at that piece of bark: it is pressed and broken as if a rope had been round it, I think?"
"It is."
"Well, do you not understand?"