The Blinder Trail

"Death?" she motioned with serene lips.

He had turned to look at her, and he read her lips.

"And yet," he said, "we must manage to get down there, somehow or other, alive."

She nodded. Both knew that, once down there, they could not expect to come out alive. That was tacitly understood. All that could be hoped was that they might reach those bluish depths alive, live long enough to learn what they had come to learn, release the pigeon with its message, then meet destiny in whatever guise it confronted them.

For Fate was not far off. Fate already watched them--herself unseen. She had caught sight of them amid the dusk of the ancient trees--was following them, stealthily, murderously, through the dim aisles of this haunted forest of Les Errues.

These two were the hunted ones, and their hunters were in the forest--nearer now than ever because the woodland was narrowing toward the east.

Also, for the first time since they had entered the Forbidden Forest, scarcely noticeable paths appeared flattening the carpet of dead leaves--not trails made by game--but ways trodden at long intervals by man--trails unused perhaps for months--then rendered vaguely visible once more by the unseen, unheard feet of lightly treading foes.

Here for the first time they had come upon the startling spoor of man--of men and enemies--men who were hunting them to slay them, and who now, in these eastern woods, no longer cared for the concealment that might lull to a sense of false security the human quarry that they pursued.