"How I hate him!" she whispered.
"An unpleasant animal, to be sure," said I. "But come, it were wiser to get as far from here as possible, they will doubtless be returning soon."
So we started off again, running in the shadow of the hedge. We had thus doubled back upon our pursuers, and, leaving the tavern upon our left, soon gained the kindly shadow of those woods through which I had passed in the early evening.
Borne to us upon the gentle wind was the haunting perfume of hidden flowers, and the sinking moon sent long shafts of silvery light to pierce the leafy gloom, and make the shadows more mysterious.
The path we followed was very narrow, so that sometimes my companion's knee touched mine, or her long, silken hair brushed my brow or cheek, as I stooped to lift some trailing branch that barred her way, or open a path for her through the leaves.
So we journeyed on through the mysteries of the woods together.
CHAPTER XX
CONCERNING DAEMONS IN GENERAL AND ONE IN PARTICULAR
In certain old books you shall find strange mention of witches, warlocks, succubae, spirits, daemons, and a thousand other powers of darkness, whose pronounced vocation was the plague of poor humanity. Within these books you may read (if you will) divers wondrous accounts, together with many learned disquisitions upon the same, and most minute and particular descriptions of witch-marks and the like.
Aforetime, when a man committed some great offence against laws human or divine, he was said to be possessed of a daemon—that is to say, he became the medium and instrument through, and by which, the evil was wrought; thus, when in due season he came to be hanged, tortured, or burned, it was inflicted not so much as a punishment upon him, the man, as to exorcise, once and for all, the devil which possessed him.