“For our share of the booty!” stammered the lieutenant.

Feodor looked at him with surprise.  “What booty?  Have we, then, become robbers and plunderers, that you speak of booty?”

His comrades burst into a wild laugh.

“Just listen to the sentimental dreamer, the cosmopolite,” cried Major von Fritsch.  “He looks upon it as dishonorable to take booty.  I for my part maintain that there is no greater pleasure, and certainly none which is more profitable.  Fill your glasses, friends, and let us drink to our hunting.  ‘Hurrah! hurrah for human game!’”

They struck their glasses together, and emptied them amidst an uproar of laughter.

“Colonel, you shall have your share of the booty!” said Lieutenant von Matusch, laying his heavy, shaky hand on Feodor’s shoulder.  “We never intended to cheat you out of your portion, but you were not here, and therefore up to this time you could have no share in it.”

As Feodor pressed him with questions, he related how they had formed a compact, and pledged themselves to have their booty and captives in common.

“We have caught more than a dozen head, and they have ransomed themselves handsomely,” cried Major von Fritsch.  “We have just sent out ten of our men again on the chase.”

“Oh!  I hope they will bring in just such another handsome young girl as they did yesterday,” cried Matusch, rubbing his hands with delight.  “Ah, that was a pleasant evening!  She offered us treasures, diamonds, and money; she promised us thousands if we would only release her at once!  She wept like a Madonna, and wrung her snow-white hands, and all that only made her prettier still.”

Colonel Feodor looked at him in anger.  In contact with such coarse and debauched companions his more refined self rose powerful within him, and his originally noble nature turned with loathing from this barren waste of vulgarity and infamy.

“I hope,” said he, warmly, “that you have behaved as becomes noble gentlemen.”

Matusch shrugged his shoulders and laughed.  “I do not know what you call so, colonel.  She was very pretty, and she pleased me.  I promised to set her free to-day, for the ransom agreed on, and I have kept my word.”

As he spoke thus, he burst into a loud laugh, in which his friends joined with glee.

But Feodor von Brenda did not laugh.  An inexplicable, prophetic dread overpowered him.  What if this young girl, described to him with so much gusto, and who had been so shamefully ill-treated, should prove to be his Elise, his beloved!

At this thought, anger and distress took possession of him, and he never loved Elise more ardently and truly than he did at this moment when he trembled for her.  “And was there no one,” cried he, with flashing eyes, “no one knightly and manly enough to take her part?  How! even you, Major von Fritsch, allowed this thing to happen?”

“I was obliged to do so,” replied the major.  “We have made a law among ourselves, which we have all sworn to obey.  It is established that the dice shall determine to which of the officers the booty shall belong; and he who throws the highest number becomes the owner of the person.  He has to negotiate about the ransom.  This, however, of course is divided among his comrades.”