If we get there ten or fifteen minutes before the hounds we shall have a good chance of escaping them." "And how long ?" "That depends--perhaps twenty." "Then, in Heaven's name, lead on.

It is life or death?
Even five minutes may make all the difference.

Which way ?" "By this trail to the right, and through the forest." The trail is a broad grass-grown path, not unlike a "ride" in an English wood, bordered by trees and thick undergrowth, but fairly lighted by the moonbeams, and, fortunately for us, rather downhill, with no obstacles more formidable than fallen branches, and here and there a prostrate monarch of the forest, which we easily surmount.
As we go on I notice that the character of the vegetation begins to change.

The trees are less leafy, the undergrowth is less dense, and a mephitic odor pervades the air.

Presently the foliage disappears altogether, and the trees and bushes are as bare as if they had been stricken with the blast of an Arctic winter; but instead of being whitened with snow or silvered with frost they are covered with an incrustation, which in the brilliant moonlight makes them look like trees and bushes of gold.