The snow had effaced all tracks, but Sir Eustace speedily found the spot where he had left the dead man, and there was the corpse, stiff and frozen, but it was evident that the knight’s description given the previous evening was all too correct.  The man had died in great horror and anguish; the arrow yet remained in his body.  It was, as in the earlier cases, one of English make—­a clumsy shaft, unlike the polished Norman workmanship.

“We must search the whole district,” said the baron; “but we had better keep together.”

Every one shared this opinion.

It was the unknown danger that troubled them, the thought that supernatural powers were arrayed against them, that the English had called the fiends to their aid, which terrified these hardened warriors.

If the English had, indeed, sought by ghostly disguise to affright their foes, they had well succeeded.

It was late in the morning before the glade was reached where our party had rested, and the body of the man first slain was discovered, and the whole band gathered around it.

Like the others, he had fallen by an English arrow.

The fear that all their friends had thus fallen became general, and expressed itself in their countenances.  The baron was livid.

There was no possibility of tracing the party, the snow had covered the footsteps; but evidence was soon found in the fragments of food—­the remains of the carcase of the wild boar—­to show that this had been the midday rest, and that here the very beginning of hostilities had taken place.

They returned thence to the spot where Torquelle was slain.  Fear and trembling seized many of the baron’s warriors as they gazed upon those distorted features—­fear, mingled with dread—­so mysterious were the circumstances.  They buried the body as decently as time permitted, and continued their course until they came upon another corpse slain in like manner.

Horror increased:  at every stage the baron feared to find the dead body of his son.  They still pursued the same line:  it led to the edge of the Dismal Swamp, and there it ended.

They stood gazing upon that desolate wilderness.

“No human being could penetrate there,” said Sir Bernard.

“Try.”

Hugo advanced, dismounting for the purpose, but sank almost directly in a quagmire covered with snow, and was drawn out with difficulty.

“No, the place is enchanted.”

“Guarded by fiends.”

“Listen.”

Cries as of men and dogs came across the waste.

“They are the demons of the pit, who would lead us into the quagmires.”

“They sound like human voices.”

“Come what will, if hard frost will but freeze the ground, we will search the place,” said the baron.  “Come, my men, we can do no more; let us return—­it is near nightfall.”

This welcome order was obeyed by all the Normans with the greatest alacrity, for they dreaded the approach of night, and the terrors of the forest, which had already proved so fatal to their companions.