To paint the wrath of the fierce-tempered Teobaldo would be impossible.
To repeat his oaths and his curses, merely to repeat them, would be
scandalous and impious. He shouted at the top of his voice to his
retainers, but only echo answered him in those vast solitudes, and he
tore his hair and plucked at his beard, a prey to the most furious
despair.--“I will run it down, even though I break every blood-vessel in
my body,” he exclaimed at last, stringing his bow anew and making ready
to pursue the game on foot; but at that very instant he heard a sound
behind him; the thick branches of the wood opened, and before his eyes
appeared a page leading by the halter a charger black as night.
“Heaven hath sent it to me,” exclaimed the hunter, leaping upon its
loins lightly as a deer. The page, who was thin, very thin, and yellow
as death, smiled a strange smile as he handed him the bridle.