The Maral Stag 235 



since it was my best, the story shall conclude 

 this sketch. 



Through the hot hours of the day we have been 

 still hunting, creeping silently or as silently as 

 we can through the forest. In some places, 

 where the tall boles of beech trees rise to form 

 high above us a gothic tracery of green leaves and 

 interlacing branches, we are in cool twilight as of 

 a cathedral. Elsewhere we are in the deeper but 

 more airless shade of oaks, looking homelike with 

 their mistletoe-decked boughs. It is a primeval 

 forest in all the stages, from companies of sturdy 

 young saplings to hoary moss-bearded veterans. 

 Some are leaning against one another for support, 

 some lie rotting on the ground. Everywhere new 

 life and decay. We pass through open sunlit 

 spaces, warm and odorous with flowers and arom- 

 atic herbs. From these we get views, through 

 tree-tops and across deep intervening valleys, of 

 distant hills and glens, and even beyond, where 

 one can imagine rather than see the dry sandy 

 deserts of Traris-Caspia. Sometimes a precipitous 

 ravine, making a gash through the forest, bars 

 our progress till a way across has been found ; 

 a rocky coomb with clinging moss and ferns, and 

 water trickling from every crevice. Then once 

 more we are in the gloom of the forest. The 

 woods at this season are intensely still. No 



