The night was as still as it was dark, the moon had not yet risen, a hushed silence seemed to have fallen over nature, and not the slightest animal was heard stirring abroad.
The young fellow, after following the road for about a hundred paces, left the highway and took a short cut across the fields. The old man was astounded to see that, though a stranger, he was quite familiar with the country, for he knew not only what lane to take, but also what path to follow in the darkness of the night, almost better than he did himself. He climbed over walls, slipped through the gaps in the hedges, leapt over ditches, just as if it had been broad daylight.
Jella's father had a great ado to follow him; still, he managed to hobble along, like an ungainly, bow-legged setter, as fast as the other one capered. They crossed a wood, where the boles of the trees had weird and fantastic shapes, where thorny twigs clutched him by his clothes; then they came out on a plain covered with sharp flints, where huge scorpions lurked under every stone. Afterwards they reached a blasted heath, where nothing grew but gnarled, knotty, and twisted roots of trees, which, by the dusky light of the stars, looked like huge snakes and fantastical reptiles; there, in the clumps of rank grass, the horned vipers curled themselves. After this they crossed a morass, amidst the croaking of the toads and the hooting of owls, where unhallowed will-o'-the-wisps flitted around him.
The old man was now sorely frightened; the country they were crossing was quite unknown to him, and besides, it looked like a spot cursed by God, and leading to a worse place still. He began to lag. What was he to do?—go back?—he would only flounder in the mire. He crossed himself, shut his eyes tightly, and followed the smell of the musk. He thus walked on for some time, shivering with fear as he felt a flapping of wings near him, and ever and anon a draught of cold air made him lose the scent he was following.
At last he stopped, hearing a loud creaking sound, a grating stridulous noise, like that of the rusty hinges of some heavy iron gate which was being closed just behind him.
A gate in the midst of a morass! thought he; where the devil could he have come to? As he uttered the ominous word of Kudic he heard the earth groan under his feet.
It is a terrible thing to hear the earth groan; it does so just before an earthquake!
He did not dare to open his eyes; he listened, awed, and then the faint sound of a distant bell fell upon his ears.
It was midnight, and that bell seemed to be slowly tolling—aye, tolling for the dead, the dead that groan in the bosom of the earth.
A shiver came over him, big drops of cold sweat gathered on his forehead. He sniffed the cold night air; it smelt earthy and damp, the scent of musk had quite passed away.