usually plentiful. He slays insanely without attempting to retrieve his victims, and at last massacres a whole herd of deer, finding them enclosed in a glen which has no outlet. Then:
Across the valley, at the edge of the forest, he perceived a stag, a hind and her fawn. The stag was black and of huge size. His antlers had sixteen points, and his beard was white. The hind, of the pale colour of dead leaves, was browsing, and gave such to the dappled fawn without interrupting her steps. The whiz of the crossbow once more sounded and the fawn fell dead. Thereat its mother looking up to heaven belled with a deep voice, agonising and human, and Julian, irritated thereby, stretched her on the ground with a second shot. Then the great stag saw him and made a bound towards him. Julian dispatched his last arrow, which hit him full in the forehead and stuck there. But the stag seemed not to feel it. He strode over the bodies, he came nearer and nearer, he was on the point of ripping him up, and Julian shrank back in terror unutterable. But the mighty beast stopped suddenly, and with flaming eyes and a solemn tone, as of a hoary judge, he said three times, while a bell tolled in the distance, “Accursed one! ruthless of heart! thou shalt slay they father and thy mother.” Then his knees tottered, and, closing his eyes, he expired.
Julian returns to the castle horrified at this prediction, and almost immediately accidents happen which seem on the point of fulfilling it. In alarm he quits his home and becomes a wandering soldier. His success in war is equal to his good luck in the chase, and at last he saves the Emperor of Occitania from the Moslem, marries his daughter, and lives in peace and splendour. But nothing will induce him to hunt, for the fancies that on his abstinence depends the fulfilment of the prediction. His wife tries to combat this idea, and one evening he sets out. For a long time no game at all appears, and when he meets a beast he is either unready for it or he misses it. By degrees his ill-luck becomes mysterious. His lance splinters on the quarry, his arrows stop in mid-course. At length:
All the birds and beasts that he had been pursuing suddenly reappeared and closed round him in a narrow circle. Some were in a sitting posture, others stood upright; he himself remained in the midst, frozen with terror and incapable of movement. With a final effort of will he made a step forward, and then the birds on the branches spread their wings, the beasts on the ground stirred their limbs, all accompanied him. Before him marched the hyenas, and behind him the wolf and the boar. The wild bull on his right swung his head from side to side, and at his left the serpent writhed through the grass, while the panther, arching her back, walked with dainty steps and long strides. He went as slowly as possible for fear of irritating them, and from the thickets there issued in crowds porcupines, foxes, jackals, and bears. He began to run: they ran too. The serpent hissed, the slaver of the foul creatures dropped. The wild boar rubbed his heels with his tusks, the wolf thrust his shaggy head into the hollow of Julian’s hand. The monkeys pinched him and grinned, the polecat glided over his feet. With a blow of his paw a bear knocked off his hat, and the panther, as if in scorn of him, tossed away an arrow which she carried in her mouth. In all their gestures there was an air of irony; they watched him out of the corners of their eyes, and seemed plotting vengeance, till, deafened by the buzzing of the insects, blinded by the flapping of the wings, choked by the noisome breath of the beasts, he walked with outstretched hands, and eyes shut like one deprived of sight, and had not even strength to cry for mercy.
No actual injury comes to him from this ghostly procession. Its effect, however, is not to warn, but to provoke him. He is furious at his impotence to harm; and when he is at the edge of the forest, thoguh his hideous escort leaves him as the cock crows, fresh delusions of a minor kind beset him. He makes his way to the castle in a mood of baffled rage, ready to break out on any object. During his absence his parents, who have wandered all over the earth to find him, have come to his caste. His wife has received them joyfully, and made them rest in her own couch. Julian returns late and silently, sees a beard on the pillow, and, mad with jealousy, slays at a single blow, as he thinks, his wife and her paramour. He is not long in perceiving his mistake, and the horrible crime he has in consequence committed. His resolution is soon taken. He leaves his wife and his riches, and once more becomes a wanderer, but this time a wanderer of a different kind. He turns mendicant friar, giving himself up utterly to penance and good works of all sorts, and finally he establishes himself on the borders of a dangerous river, and ferries over passengers at the hazard of his life and for no reward. At last, one stormy night he is summoned