Over the tangle of marks lay a slim paw-printed, confident, careless trail of a jackal, following the scent to a well.

The Maccabee was obedient to the instinct of the animal instead of the reason of man.

At the end of that trail, surer than Ariadne's scarlet thread in the labyrinth, he knew that thirst had taken the girl in the dress of silver tissue.

So as he rode along this faultless highway that fared level and undeviating by arches, causeways and bridges across mountains, over black marshes and profound valleys, he kept his eyes on the jackal's trail.
Long after moonrise they came to a spot in the road where the human marks passed on, by hundreds, by other hundreds deserted the road and clambered up the side of the hill.

Over this deviation the jackal had trotted.