"Morbleu!" grumbled the woodman; "I did not think of that."
"Had we but a piece of mademoiselle's dress!" said Urbain.
"Here are what we require," said I, in a voice all but breathless with emotion, while drawing from my breast the kid glove and fragment of lace which we had found near the garden-bower. The chevalier gave me a keen glance, and snatching the relics almost abruptly from my hand, pressed them against the black nostrils of the dog, patting him soothingly the while. The glove was perfumed fortunately, and thus, in a minute or less, the dog, after sniffing and snorting about among the grass, with his head bent low and ears drooping, began to run rapidly through the forest, straining on his collar and chain, and dragging after him the peasant who grasped the other end of it.
"Parbleu, messieurs! he is on the track now! See how he follows the scent!" exclaimed the old man, who was compelled to run fast to keep up with the dog and with us. "Oh! by St. Malo! See, here are the footsteps, the crushed leaves, the broken twigs! 'Tis this way they have passed, messieurs. Ah! sacré coquin! That tap on the head shall cost thee dear. Look to your pistols, monsieur le chevalier, for he has a pair, and I know not the moment we may come upon him."
Thus surely guided by the searching instinct and unflinching pertinacity of the hound, we hastened through the forest in silence, and with hearts full of intense anxiety and hope.
The dog was sometimes at fault when runnels of water crossed our path, but the peasant, who was an acute old fellow, with a face of the true Breton type—eyes that were deeply set and thoughtful, a high nose and square forehead—soon set him right again.
What must poor Jacqueline, so delicate and so tenderly nurtured, have suffered while forced to pursue such paths as these? We were now at least eight miles distant from Bourgneuf, and for her to have been dragged through a forest at midnight, and by such hands!
The idea was too dreadful to embody in fancy, so let me hasten over what follows.
At a part of the forest which was so dense that the intertwined branches of the trees almost excluded the light of the sun, the dog stopped at the root of a large elm, and began to bay loudly over some tufts of grass, leaves, and branches that were freshly heaped up there. He snorted, growled savagely, and then proceeded to tear up the little mound with his nose and forepaws.
"The scent ends here," said the peasant, looking somewhat bewildered and alarmed.