The freshness of the night revived her after the
fiery experience of the last few hours. She tried to follow the path
explained to her by d'Orgemont, but the darkness became so dense after
the moon had gone down that she was forced to walk hap-hazard,
blindly. Presently the fear of falling down some precipice seized her
and saved her life, for she stopped suddenly, fancying the ground
would disappear before her if she made another step. A cool breeze
lifting her hair, the murmur of the river, and her instinct all
combined to warn her that she was probably on the verge of the
Saint-Sulpice rocks. She slipped her arm around a tree and waited for
dawn with keen anxiety, for she heard a noise of arms and horses and
human voices; she was grateful to the darkness which saved her from
the Chouans, who were evidently, as the miser had said, surrounding
Fougeres.
Like fires lit at night as signals of liberty, a few gleams, faintly
crimsoned, began to show upon the summits, while the bases of the
mountains still retained the bluish tints which contrasted with the
rosy clouds that were floating in the valley. Soon a ruby disk rose
slowly on the horizon and the skies greeted it; the varied landscape,
the bell-tower of Saint-Leonard, the rocks, the meadows buried in
shadow, all insensibly reappeared, and the trees on the summits were
defined against the skies in the rising glow.
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