Strange rushings sounded among the fern, as if the wings of a demon brushed it as he travelled.

Felix knew that they were caused by rabbits hastening off, or a boar bounding away, yet they increased the feverish excitement with which he was burdened.
Though dark beneath the firs, it was not like the darkness of the beeches; these trees did not form a perfect canopy overhead everywhere.
In places he could see where a streak of moonlight came aslant through an opening and reached the ground.

One such streak fell upon the track ahead; the trees there had decayed and fallen, and a broad band of light lit up the way.
As he approached it and had almost entered, suddenly something shot towards him in the air; a flash, as it were, as if some object had crossed the streak, and was rendered visible for the tenth of a second, like a mote in the sunbeams.

At the same instant of time, the horse, which he had pressed to go faster, put his foot into a rut or hole, and stumbled, and Felix was flung so far forward that he only saved himself from being thrown by clinging to his neck.

A slight whizzing sound passed over his head, followed immediately by a sharp tap against a tree in his rear.
The thing happened in the twinkling of an eye, but he recognised the sound; it was the whiz of a crossbow bolt, which had missed his head, and buried its point in a fir.