Then I knew that I was to have a companion, and that God had laid also for him a table in the wilderness." "It did lay, then ?" "It is still on the nest, beside your foot." Tignonville was about to reply when the preacher grasped his arm and by a sign enjoined silence.

He did so not a moment too soon.

Preoccupied by the story, narrator and listener had paid no heed to what was passing in the lane, and the voices of men speaking close at hand took them by surprise.

From the first words which reached them, it was clear that the speakers were the same who had chased La Tribe as far as the meeting of the four ways, and, losing him there, had spent the morning in other business.

Now they had returned to hunt him down; and but for a wrangle which arose among them and detained them, they had stolen on their quarry before their coming was suspected.
"'Twas this way he ran!" "No, 'twas the other!" they contended; and their words, winged with vile threats and oaths, grew noisy and hot.