The twilight was richly clear, and there were some faint yellow lines of the sun's last glances lingering still on the remote horizon.

The moon, too, in the opposite sky, about to come forth, had sent before her some few faint harbingers of her approach; and it was not difficult for the sturdy woodman to discern the body of the traveller, lying, as it did, almost in his path.

A few paces farther on stood his steed, cropping the young grass, and occasionally, with uplifted head, looking round with something like human wonderment, for the assertion of that authority which heretofore had him in charge.

At the approach of the stranger he did not start, but, seeming conscious of some change for the better in his own prospects, he fell again to work upon the herbage as if no interruption had occurred to his repast.
The song of the woodman ceased as he discovered the body.

With an exclamation, he stooped down to examine it, and his hands were suffused with the blood which had found its way through the garments.