“Hark!” he whispered mysteriously.  “Look there!”

At the end of the hollow, scooped out perpendicularly like a quarry in the mountain side, I saw a bright fire unrolling its golden spires beneath the vault of a cave, and before the fire sat a man with his hands clasped about his knees, whom I recognised by his dress as the Baron de Zimmer-Bluderich.

He sat motionless, his forehead resting between his hands.  Behind him lay a dark gaunt form extended on the ground.  Farther on, his horse, half lost in the shade, reared his neck, gazed on us with eyes fixed, ears erect, and nostrils distended.

I stood rooted to the ground.

How did the Baron de Zimmer happen to be in that lonely wilderness at such a time?  What did he want here?  Had he lost his way?

The most contradictory conjectures were passing in confusion through my excited brain, and I could not tell what conclusion to arrive at, when the baron’s horse began to neigh, and the master raised his head.

“Well, Donner, what is the matter now?” said he.

Then he, too, directed his gaze our way, straining his eyes through the darkness.

That pale face, with its strongly-marked features, thin lips, and thick black eyebrows meeting together, and forming a deep hollow on the brow in the form of a long vertical wrinkle, would have struck me with admiration at any other time; while now an inexplicable anxiety laid hold of me, and I was filled with vague apprehensions.

Suddenly the young man exclaimed—­

“Who goes there?”

“I, monseigneur,” answered Sperver, coming forward—­“Sperver, chief huntsman to the lord of Nideck.”

A flash shot from the baron’s quick eye; not a muscle of his countenance quailed.  He rose to his feet, gathering his pelisse over his shoulders.  I drew towards me the horses and the dog, and this animal suddenly began howling fearfully.

Is not every one, more or less, subject to superstitious fears?  At these dismal sounds I trembled, and a cold shudder crept through my whole body.

Sperver and the baron stood at a distance of fifty yards from each other; the first immovable in the midst of the deep glen, his gun unslung from his shoulder, the other erect upon the level platform outside of the cave, carrying his head high, fixing on us a haughty eye and a proud look of superiority.

“What do you want here?” he asked aggressively.

“We are looking for a woman,” replied the old poacher—­“a woman who comes every year prowling about Nideck, and our orders are to take her.”

“Has she stolen anything?”

“No.”

“Has she committed murder?”

“No, monseigneur.”

“Then what do you want with her?  What right have you to pursue her?”

“And you—­what right have you over her?” answered Sperver with an ironical smile.  “See, there she is.  I can see her at the bottom of the cave.  What right have you to meddle with our affairs?  Don’t you know that we are here in the domains of Nideck, and that we administer justice and execute our own decrees?”