The woods extended in that direction in an irregular triangle, the last trees of which almost touched the very brink of the cliff.
As they were approaching with feverish steps that extreme point, Lucan suddenly stopped.
"Listen!" he said.
The sound of a horse's gallop upon the hard soil could be distinctly heard.

They ran.
A sloping bank of moderate elevation divided the wood from the plateau.
This they climbed half way with the help of trailing branches; screened then by the bushes and the foliage, they beheld before them a most impressive spectacle.

At a short distance to the left, Julia was coming on at break-neck speed; she was following the oblique line of the woods, apparently shaping her course straight toward the edge of the cliff.

They thought at first that her horse had run away, but they saw that she was lashing him with her whip to further accelerate his speed.
She was still some hundred paces from the two men, and she was about passing before them.

Lucan was preparing to leap to the other side of the bank, when the hand of Monsieur de Moras fell violently upon his arm and held him back--firmly.
They looked at each other.