In this way both parties went on, the keeper still hurrying forward,
every now and then turning his head to see whether any one was on his
track, until he came to a road cut through the trees that brought him to
the edge of a descent leading to the lake. Just at this moment a cloud
passed over the moon, burying all in comparative obscurity. The
watchers, however, could perceive the keeper approach an ancient
beech-tree of enormous growth, and strike it thrice with the short
hunting-spear which he held in his grasp.
The signal remaining unanswered, he quitted the tree, and shaped his
course along the side of a hill on the right. Keeping under the shelter of
the thicket on the top of the same hill, Surrey and Richmond followed,
and saw him direct his steps towards another beech-tree of almost
double the girth of that he had just visited. Arrived at this mighty tree,
he struck it with his spear, while a large owl, seated on a leafless
branch, began to hoot; a bat circled the tree; and two large snakes,
glistening in the moonlight, glided from its roots. As the tree was
stricken for the third time, the same weird figure that the watchers had
seen ride along the Home Park burst from its riften trunk, and
addressed its summoner in tones apparently menacing and imperious,
but whose import was lost upon the listeners.
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