The Knight of the Golden Melice

The course they took was in a northerly direction, and as they proceeded, the Knight was engaged in earnest conversation with the Indian. In this manner they went on long after the sun had set, even until the position of the stars announced that the hour of midnight was at hand. There must have been some danger to the savage feared by the Knight to induce him to lend his escort thus far. But they met nothing to excite apprehension. Silence reigned throughout the unviolated forest, unbroken save by the cry of a night bird, or the stealthy step of some wild beast stealing through the thickets, or the cracking of dry branches under their own feet, or their murmured conversation.