Now he would play the part of an honest man; his heart throbbed at the thought.
But all this time his eyes were fixed upon the closed vehicle, behind which he rode; and was it indeed the thought of having gained freedom which made his heart so strangely beat?
He pushed his horse as near as possible to the carriage; he rode beside it; he stretched out his hand and touched it.

As soon as the nature of the road permitted, he gave an order to make better speed, and his horse began to trot; he thought less of the danger from which he was fleeing than of the place of rest where Veranilda would step down from the carriage, and he would look upon her face.
Under the great white moon, the valley into which they were descending lay revealed in every feature, and the road itself was as well illumined as by daylight.

On they sped, as fast as the mules could be driven.

Near or far sounded from time to time the howl of a wolf, answered by the fierce bark of dogs in some farm or village; the hooting of owls broke upon the stillness, or the pipe of toads from a marshy hollow.

By the wayside would be seen moving stealthily a dark form, which the travellers knew to be a bear, but they met no human being, nor anywhere saw the gleam of a light in human habitation.
Coming within view of some temple of the old religion, all crossed themselves and murmured a prayer, for this was the hour when the dethroned demons had power over the bodies and the souls of men.
After a long descent they struck into the Via Latina, still in spite of long neglect almost as good a road as when the legions marched over its wheel-furrowed stones.