Per varios casus, per tot discrimena rerum, tendimus in LATIUM sedes ubi fata quietas ostendunt.
There is always and forever a haven we can win. In all the chances and turmoils of this life, howeversomuch we are tossed upon the seas of circumstance, somewhere, without doubt, there is peace.
For the intellect distracted and pierced through by every fresh morsel of knowledge, for the brain tired out by the senses, for the body full of the sickness, let us say, of a great town, somewhere the Fates have a quiet resting place. There is peace waiting. Let Alecto, Megaera and Tisiphone shriek and wail ever so loudly, they shall not break it.
Tendimus in Latium—we are all going towards Latium. For some of us it is the blessed peace of the grave, and others are to find it in this life. Somewhere there is peace!
Hyla felt an utter weariness of life and all its appeals as he fled through the forest. The hot wan wine of revenge that had been his blood was now cool and stagnant. That stern old devil-hearted man that he had made into a filthy corpse had passed away out of knowledge as if he had never been. The brain of the serf was all empty of sensation, save for that great weariness. His body was full of the mere instinct of self-preservation. The legs on which he ran, the arms which pushed aside the forest branches, the furtive eyes which sought for foes, all acted independently of his brain. Nature itself working in him bade him fly. For himself, had he thought about it, he would hardly have cared, even though he had been captured. But none the less was his fleeing swift and sure.
He twisted his tortuous way through the thick hazel shoots, which struck him in the face as he buffeted them, and his bare arms and legs were scarred and pricked in a thousand places with thorns from the trailing undergrowth.
When he had beat back to the other end of Monkshood, walking parallel to the glade, he heard voices close to him and the noise of a company of people entering the ride at the far end of the glade. By the three sinister trees, he heard the keen notes of a horn blowing in eager summons. Suddenly a new and terrible fear came to him. The dogs, which were whining all round, would most surely smell him in a moment. He could hear their excited movements on every side. He realised that he should have made a much greater detour, and that he had, in fact, stumbled into the very middle of his enemies.
He could see no way out of his perilous position, and felt that he was certain of immediate discovery. But the Fates, which were providing a short peace for him, willed that his capture was not yet to be. The urgent note of Kenulph's horn, half a mile away, attracted the dogs, and they gave tongue, and, dashing out of the cover, spread up the drive in a long line. Fulke, who was within ten yards of the hidden murderer, cheered them on.
"I can see figures," shouted a huntsman, "one, two horses. They must be my lord and Kenulph, and Sir Boar is dead. Come along, Sir Fulke, we are not very far behind after all!"