And while the trumpet sounded the Baron listened and listened, and walked up and down, and fretted and fumed and chafed, and I’m afraid he swore a little too; and at last he was going to tell the trumpeter to stop his infernal noise, when, just at that moment, what should he see all of a sudden emerging from the woods but three figures!

And I’ll leave you to imagine, if you can, the joy and delight which agitated the bosom of our good Baron as he recognized among these three figures the well-known face and form of his friend Hawbury.  With Hawbury was a lady whom the Baron remembered having seen once in the upper hall of a certain house in Rome, on a memorable occasion, when he stood on the stairs calling Min.  The lady was very austere then, but she was very gracious now, and very wonderfully sweet in the expression of her face.  And with them was a stranger in the garb of a priest.

Now as soon as the party met the Baron, who rushed to meet them, Hawbury wrung his hand, and stared at him in unbounded astonishment.

“You!” he cried; “yourself, old boy!  By Jove!”

“Yes,” said the Baron.  “You see, the moment we got into that ambush I kept my eye open, and got a chance to spring into the woods.  There I was all right, and ran for it.  I got into the road again a couple of miles back, got a horse, rode to Civita Castellaria, and there I was lucky enough to find a company of Zouaves.  Well, Sir, we came here flying, mind, I tell you, and got hold of a chap that we made guide us to the lake.  Then we opened on them; and here we are, by thunder!  But where’s Min?”

“Who?” asked Hawbury.

“Min,” said the Baron, in the most natural tone in the world.

“Oh!  Why, isn’t she here?”

“No.  We’ve hunted every where.  No one’s here at all.”  And the Baron went on to tell about their search and its results.  Hawbury was chiefly struck by the news of Girasole.

“He must have gone mad with terror,” said Hawbury, as he told the Baron about his adventure at the grave.  “If that’s so,” he added, “I don’t see how the ladies could be harmed.  I dare say they’ve run off.  Why, we started to run, and got so far off that we couldn’t find our way back, even after the trumpet began to sound.  You must keep blowing at it, you know.  Play all the national tunes you can—­no end.  They’ll find their way back if you give them time.”

And now they all went back to the house, and the Baron in his anxiety could not talk any more, but began his former occupation of walking up and down, and fuming and fretting and chafing, and, I’m again afraid, swearing—­when all of a sudden, on the bank in front of him, on the very top, just emerging from the thick underbrush which had concealed them till that moment, to their utter amazement and indescribable delight, they beheld Scone Dacres and Mrs. Willoughby.  Scone Dacres appeared to Hawbury to be in a totally different frame of mind from that