But it was some little while yet before my mind returned fully to what had passed, and so to my loss.

I sat looking at the grey, noisy water, almost incredulous that Rosinante could be gone.  It might be that the same hand as must have drawn myself from drowning had snatched her bridle also out of Fate’s grasp.  Perhaps even now she was seeking her master by the greener pasture of the wide plains around me.  Perhaps the far-off sea was her green sepulchre.  But many waters cannot quench love.  I faced, friendless and discomfited, a region as strange to me as the farther side of the moon.

Without more ado I rose, shook myself, and sadly began to go forward.  But I had taken only a few steps along the banks of the stream—­for here was fresh water, at least—­when a sound like distant thunder rolled over these flat, green lands towards me, increasing steadily in volume.

I stood, lost in wonder, and presently, at the distance, perhaps, of a little less than a mile, descried an innumerable herd of horses streaming across these level pastures, and at the extremity, it seemed, of a wide ellipse, that had brought them near, and now was galloping them away.

My heart beat a little faster at this extraordinary spectacle.  And while I stood in uncertainty gazing after the retreating concourse, I perceived a figure running towards me, lifting his hands and crying out in a voice sonorous and inhuman.  He was of a stature much above my own, yet so gross in shape and immense of head he seemed at first almost dwarfish.  He came to a stand twenty paces or so from me, on the ridge of a gentle inclination, and gazed down on me with wild, bright eyes.  Even at this distance I could perceive the almost colourless lustre of his eyes beneath his thick locks of yellow hair.  When he had taken his fill of me, he lifted his head again and cried out to me a few words of what certainly might be English, but was neither intelligible nor reassuring.

I stood my ground and stared him in the face, till I could see nothing but wind-blown yellow, and strange, brutal eyes.  Then he advanced a little nearer.  Whereupon I also raised my hand with a gesture like his own, and demanded loudly where I was, what was this place, and who was he.  His very ears pricked forward, he listened so intently.  He came nearer yet, then stayed, tossed his head into the air, whirled the long leather thong he carried above his head, and, signing to me to follow, set off with so swift and easy a stride as would soon have carried him out of sight, had he not turned and perceived how slowly I could follow him.

He slackened his pace then, and, thus running, we came in sight at length of what appeared to be a vast wooden shed, or barn, with one rude chimney, and surrounded by a thick fence, or stockade, many feet high and apparently of immense strength and stability.