We rested frequently, breathless and panting, a hand to the side.  Monica was a marvel of endurance.  Her boots were sopping, her skirt wet to the waist, her face was scratched, and her hair was coming down, but she never complained.  Francis was seemingly tireless and was always the one to lead the way when we started afresh.

It was heavy going, for at every step our feet sank deep in the leaves.  The forest was undulating with deep hollows and steep banks, which tried us a good deal.  It soon became evident that we could not keep up the pace.  Monica was tiring visibly, and I had had about enough; Francis, too, seemed done up.  We slackened to a walk.  We were toiling painfully up on of these steep banks when Francis, who was leading, held up his hand.

“Charlemagne’s Ride!” he whispered as we came up.  We looked down from the top of the bank and saw below us a broad forest glade, canopied by the thick branches of the ancient trees that met overhead, and leading up a slope, narrowing as it went, to a path that lost itself among the shadows that were falling fast upon the forest.

Francis clambered down the bank and we followed.  Twilight reigned below in the glade under the lofty roof of branches and our feet rustled softly as we trod the leaves underfoot.  It was a ghostly place, and Monica clutched my arm as we went quickly after Francis, who, striding rapidly ahead, threatened to be swallowed up in the shadows of the autumn evening.  He led us up the slope and along the narrow path.  A path struck off it, and he took it.  It led us into a thicker part of the forest than we had yet struck, where there were great boulders protruding from the dripping bushes, and brambles grew so thick that in places they obscured the track.

The forest sloped up again, and in front of us was a steep bank, its sides dotted with great rocks and a tangle of brambles and undergrowth.  Francis stooped between two boulders at the foot of the slope, then turning and beckoning us to follow, disappeared.  Monica went in after him, and I came last.  We were in a kind of narrow entrance, scooped out of the earth between the rocks, and it led down to a broad chamber, which had apparently been dug beneath some of the boulders, for, stretching out my hand, I found the roof was rock and damp to the touch.

Francis and Monica were standing in this chamber as I came down.  Directly I entered I knew why they stood so still.  A glimmer of light came from the farther end of the cave and a strange sound, a sort of strangled sobbing, reached our ears.

I crept forward in the dark in the direction of the light.  My outstretched hands came upon a low opening.  I stooped and, crawling round a rock, saw another chamber illuminated by a guttering candle stuck by its wax to the earthen wall.  On the floor a man was lying, sobbing as though his heart would break.  He was wearing some kind of military great-coat with a yellow stripe running down the back.