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voluntary imprisonment. Ah! for the space; and for the health-bringingair which courses between that forest's branches, that forest of theworld which by right should be man's inalienable domain! However, thename of Barthes, the perpetual prisoner, came back to Guillaume's lips,and he sighed mournfully. The thought that there should be even a singleman whose liberty was thus ever assailed, sufficed to poison the pureatmosphere he breathed.
"What will you say to Barthes?" he asked his brother. "The poor fellowmust necessarily be warned. Exile is at any rate preferable toimprisonment."
Pierre sadly waved his hand. "Yes, of course, I must warn him. But what apainful task it is!"
Guillaume made no rejoinder, for at that very moment, in that remote,deserted nook, where they could fancy themselves at the world's end, amost extraordinary spectacle was presented to their view. Something orrather someone leapt out of a thicket and bounded past them. It wasassuredly a man, but one who was so unrecognisable, so miry, so woefuland so frightful, that he might have been taken for an animal, a boarthat hounds had tracked and forced from his retreat. On seeing therivulet, he hesitated for a moment, and then followed its course. But,all at once, as a sound of footsteps and panting breath drew nearer, hesprang into the water, which reached his thighs, bounded on to thefurther bank, and vanished from sight behind a clump of pines. A momentafterwards some keepers and policemen rushed by, skirting the rivulet,and in their turn disappearing. It was a man hunt that had gone past, afierce, secret hunt with no display of scarlet or blast of horns athwartthe soft, sprouting foliage.
"Some rascal or other," muttered Pierre. "Ah! the wretched fellow!"Guillaume made a gesture of discouragement. "Gendarmes and prison!" saidhe. "They still constitute society's only schooling system!"Meantime the man was still running on, farther and farther away.When, on the previous night, Salvat had suddenly escaped from thedetectives by bounding into the Bois de Boulogne, it had occurred to himto slip round to the Dauphine gate and there descend into the deep ditch*of the city ramparts. He remembered days of enforced idleness which hehad spent there, in nooks where, for his own part, he had never met aliving soul. Nowhere, indeed, could one find more secret places ofretreat, hedged round by thicker bushes, or concealed from view byloftier herbage. Some corners of the ditch, at certain angles of themassive bastions, are favourite dens or nests for thieves and lovers.Salvat, as he made his way through the thickest of the brambles, nettlesand ivy, was lucky enough to find a cavity full of dry leaves, in whichhe buried himself to the chin. The rain had already drenched him, andafter slipping down the muddy slope, he had frequently been obliged togrope his way upon all fours. So those dry leaves proved a boon such ashe had not dared to hope for. They dried him somewhat, serving as ablanket in which he coiled himself after his wild race through the dankdarkness. The rain still fell, but he now only felt it on his head, and,weary as he was, he gradually sank into deep slumber beneath thecontinuous drizzle. When he opened his eyes again, the dawn was breaking,
