_Go on_!" cried his pride.
He had drawn out his revolver and was carrying it in his right hand with the barrel to the front.

In this solitude he could not count upon the conventions of civilized life.

Night was swallowing him up with all the ambushed traps of a virgin forest while before his eyes was sparkling a great city, crowned with electric diamonds, throwing a halo of flame into the blackness of space.
Three times the Carabineers passed near him, but he did not wish to speak to them.

"Forward! Only women had to ask assistance...." Besides, perhaps he was under an hallucination: he really could not swear that they were in pursuit of him.
After a few steps, this doubt vanished.

His senses, sharpened by danger, had the same perception as has the wild boar who scents the pack of hounds trying to cross his tracks.