country of swelling forest-land and slopes of meadow ran to the West, and
the West from flaming yellow burned down to smoky crimson across it.
Temple bade--me 'catch the disc--that was English enough.' A glance at
the sun's disc confirmed the truth of his observation. Gazing on the
outline of the orb, one might have fancied oneself in England. Yet the
moment it had sunk under the hill this feeling of ours vanished with it.
The coloured clouds drew me ages away from the recollection of home.

A tower on a distant hill, white among pines, led us to suppose that
Sarkeld must lie somewhere beneath it. We therefore descended straight
toward the tower, instead of returning to the road, and struck
confidently into a rugged path. Recent events had given me the assurance
that in my search for my father I was subject to a special governing
direction. I had aimed at the Bench--missed it--been shipped across sea
and precipitated into the arms of friends who had seen him and could tell
me I was on his actual track, only blindly, and no longer blindly now.

'Follow the path,' I said, when Temple wanted to have a consultation.

'So we did in the London fog!' said he, with some gloom.

But my retort: 'Hasn't it brought us here?' was a silencer.

Dark night came on. Every height stood for a ruin in our eyes, every dip
an abyss. It grew bewilderingly dark, but the path did not forsake us,
and we expected, at half-hour intervals, to perceive the lights of
Sarkeld, soon to be thundering at one of the inns for admission and
supper. I could hear Temple rehearsing his German vocabulary, 'Brod,
butter, wasser, fleisch, bett,' as we stumbled along. Then it fell to
'Brod, wasser, bett,' and then, 'Bett' by itself, his confession of