Suddenly, on turning the corner of an old hedge of clipped yews, Don Luis saw the limousine, which had been left, or, rather, hidden there in a hollow.  The door was open.  The disorder of the inside of the car, the rug hanging over the footboard, a broken window, a cushion on the floor, all bore witness to a struggle.  The scoundrel had no doubt taken advantage of the fact that Florence was asleep to tie her up; and on arriving, when he tried to take her out of the car, Florence must have clutched at everything that offered.

Don Luis at once verified the correctness of his theory.  As he went along the very narrow, grass-grown path that led up the slope, he saw that the grass was uniformly pressed down.

“Oh, the villain!” he thought.  “The villain!  He doesn’t carry his victim, he drags her!”

If he had listened only to his instinct, he would have rushed to Florence’s rescue.  But his profound sense of what to do and what to avoid saved him from committing any such imprudence.  At the first alarm, at the least sound, the tiger would have throttled his prey.  To escape this hideous catastrophe, Don Luis must take him by surprise and then and there deprive him of his power of action.  He controlled himself, therefore, and slowly and cautiously mounted the incline.

The path ran upward between heaps of stones and fallen buildings, and among clumps of shrubs overtopped by beeches and oaks.  The place was evidently the site of the old feudal castle which had given the estate its name; and it was here, near the top, that the scoundrel had selected one of his retreats.

The trail continued over the trampled herbage.  And Don Luis even caught sight of something shining on the ground, in a tuft of grass.  It was a ring, a tiny and very simple ring, consisting of a gold circlet and two small pearls, which he had often noticed on Florence’s finger.  And the fact that caught his attention was that a blade of grass passed and repassed and passed a third time through the inside of the ring, like a ribbon that had been rolled round it deliberately.

“It’s a clear signal,” said Perenna to himself.  “The villain probably stopped here to rest; and Florence, bound up; but with her fingers free, was able to leave this evidence of her passage.”

So the girl still hoped.  She expected assistance.  And Don Luis reflected with emotion that it was perhaps to him that this last desperate appeal was addressed.

Fifty steps farther—­and this detail pointed to the rather curious fatigue experienced by the scoundrel—­there was a second halt and a second clue, a flower, a field-sage, which the poor little hand had picked and plucked of its petals.  Next came the print of the five fingers dug into the ground, and next a cross drawn with a pebble.  And in this way he was able to follow, minute by minute, all the successive stages of the horrible journey.

The last stopping-place was near.  The climb became steeper and rougher.  The fallen stones occasioned more frequent obstacles.  On the right the Gothic arches, the remains of a chapel, stood out against the blue sky.  On the left was a strip of wall with a mantelpiece still clinging to it.