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his dreams was probably there.
It was no small matter to reach that glade. By the beaten
paths, which indulge in a thousand teasing zigzags, it re-
quired a good quarter of an hour. In a bee-line, through
the underbrush, which is peculiarly dense, very thorny,
and very aggressive in that locality, a full half hour was
necessary. Boulatruelle committed the error of not compre-
hending this. He believed in the straight line; a respectable
optical illusion which ruins many a man. The thicket, bris-
tling as it was, struck him as the best road.
‘Let’s take to the wolves’ Rue de Rivoli,’ said he.
Boulatruelle, accustomed to taking crooked courses, was
on this occasion guilty of the fault of going straight.
He flung himself resolutely into the tangle of under-
growth.
He had to deal with holly bushes, nettles, hawthorns, eg-
lantines, thistles, and very irascible brambles. He was much
lacerated.
At the bottom of the ravine he found water which he was
obliged to traverse.
At last he reached the Blaru-bottom, after the lapse of
forty minutes, sweating, soaked, breathless, scratched, and
ferocious.
There was no one in the glade. Boulatruelle rushed to the
heap of stones. It was in its place. It had not been carried
off.
As for the man, he had vanished in the forest. He had
made his escape. Where? in what direction? into what thick-
et? Impossible to guess.