Then he went on through an avenue of great trees which formed a sort of triumphal arch with their crowns at the edge of a forest. A roe-deer sprang out of a thicket, a fallow-deer appeared in a cross-way, a badger came out of a hole, a peacock on the grass displayed its tail;—and, when he had killed them all, more roe-deer presented themselves, more fallow-deer, more badgers, more peacocks, and blackbirds, jays, polecats, foxes, hedgehogs, lynxes, an infinity of beasts, more numerous at every step. They played about him, trembling, with sweet and supplicating looks. But Julian never grew tired of killing them, now winding his cross-bow, now unsheathing his sword, now thrusting with his cutlass, without a thought in his mind, without recollection of anything whatsoever. He was hunting in some country somewhere, from a time unknown, simply because he was there, everything done with the ease experienced in dreams. An extraordinary spectacle arrested him. Stags filled a valley shaped like a circus; and huddled one against the other they warmed themselves with their breaths, which could be seen reeking in the mist.
The prospect of such carnage choked him with delight for some minutes. Then he dismounted, turned up his sleeves, and began to shoot.
At the whistling of the first bolt, all the stags turned round their heads at once. Gaps showed in their mass; plaintive voices sounded, and a great commotion agitated the herd.
The sides of the valley were too high for them to clear. They sprang about in the enclosure, seeking to escape. Julian aimed, let go, and his arrows fell like the rainstreaks in a storm-shower. The maddened stags fought, reared, climbed upon one another; and their bodies locked by their antlers made a great hillock which crumbled away as it moved.
At last they were dead, lying on the sand, the foam at their nostrils, their entrails protruding, the heaving of their flanks subsiding by degrees. Then all was still.
Night was about to fall; and behind the wood, between the branches, the sky was like a lake of blood.
Julian leant his back against a tree. With listless eye he contemplated the enormity of the massacre, not understanding how he had been able to do it.
On the other side of the valley, at the edge of the forest, he saw a stag, a hind and her fawn.
The stag, which was black and of monstrous size, had sixteen points and a white beard. The hind, light as withered leaves in colour, was browsing on the grass; and the dappled fawn sucked at her dug without hindering her progress.
The cross-bow snored once again. The fawn, that same instant, was killed. Then its dam, looking to the sky, brayed in a voice deep, heart-rending, human. With a shot full in the breast the exasperated Julian stretched her on the earth.