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La Tribe tore through the thicket, i Carlat and Count Hannibal

hot on his heels He dared not pause even to listen The underwood

tripped him, the lissom branches of the alders whipped his face and

blinded hirown stone, and picked

hi But the hare hard-pushed takes no account of the

briars, nor does the fox heed the h which it draws itself into

covert And for the tiht but a hunted beast With elbows

pinned to his sides, or with hands extended to ward off the boughs, with

bursting lungs and cri doards, now leaping upwards, now all but prostrate, now

breasting a e

of the wood, saw before hi-

place, and with a groan of despair cast himself flat He listened How

far were they behind hi, save the cory

chatter of a disturbed blackbird as it fle into hiding, or the harsh

notes of a flock of starlings as they rose froust flies buzzed about his sweating brow,

for he had lost his cap But behind hi Already the stillness