But still, though the moon was slow in its rising, the fever of the chase
burned in the huntsman's veins, and caused him to press on. For now he found
himself at the rocky entrance of a ravine whence no way led; and the white doe
being still before him, he made sure that he would get her at last. So when
his horse fell, too tired to rise again, he dismounted and forced his way on;
and soon he saw before him the white doe, labouring up an ascent of sharp
crags, while closer and higher the rocks rose and narrowed on every side.
Presently she had leapt high upon a boulder that shook and swayed as her feet
rested, and ahead the wall of rocks had joined so that there was nowhere
farther that she might go.

Then the huntsman notched an arrow, and drew with full strength, and let it
go. Fast and straight it went, and the wind screamed in the red feathers as
they flew; but faster the doe overleapt his aim, and, spurning the stone
beneath, down the rough-bouldered gully sent it thundering, shivering to
fragments as it fell. Scarcely might the huntsman escape death as the great
mass swept past: but when the danger was over he looked ahead, and saw
plainly, where the stone had once stood, a narrow opening in the rock, and a
clear gleam of moonlight beyond.

That way he went, and passing through, came upon a green field, as full of
flowers as a garden, duskily shining now, and with dark shadows in all its
folds. Round it in a great circle the rocks made a high wall, so high that
along their crest forest-trees as they clung to look over seemed but as
low-growing thickets against the sky.

The huntsman's feet stumbled in shadow and trod through thick grass into a
quick-flowing streamlet that ran through the narrow way by which he had
entered. He threw himself down into its cool bed, and drank till he could
drink no more. When he rose he saw, a little way off, a small dwelling-house