They penetrated with their Andalusian horses
into a strange country, where they could discover no beaten path. At
length a beautiful meadow, intersected with purling rills, opened to
their view. Cacambo proposed to his master to take some nourishment,
and he set him an example.
"How can you desire me to feast upon ham, when I have killed the
Baron's son and am doomed never more to see the beautiful Cunegund?
What will it avail me to prolong a wretched life that must be spent
far from her in remorse and despair? And then what will the journal of
Trevoux say?" was Candide's reply.
While he was making these reflections he still continued eating. The
sun was now on the point of setting when the ears of our two wanderers
were assailed with cries which seemed to be uttered by a female voice.
They could not tell whether these were cries of grief or of joy;
however, they instantly started up, full of that inquietude and
apprehension which a strange place naturally inspires. The cries
proceeded from two young women who were tripping disrobed along the
mead, while two monkeys followed close at their heels biting at
their limbs. Candide was touched with compassion; he had learned to
shoot while he was among the Bulgarians, and he could hit a filbert in
a hedge without touching a leaf.
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