“Presently, far, far away, came a faint tinkle of bells; so faint, at first, that I thought it was but fancy, then distincter.  It was even more eerie than the silence, I thought, though I knew it could come but from some passing sleigh.  All at once that ceased, and again my duller senses could perceive nothing, though I saw by my host’s craning neck that he was more on the alert than ever.  But at last I too heard once more, this time not bells, but as it were the tread of horses muffled by the snow, intermittent and dull, yet drawing nearer.  And then in the inner silence of the great house it seemed to me I caught the noise of closing doors; but here the hounds, as if suddenly becoming alive to some disturbance, raised the same fearsome concert of yells and barks with which they had greeted my arrival, and listening became useless.

“I had risen to my feet.  My host, turning from the window, seized my shoulder with a fierce grip, and bade me ‘hold my noise’; for a second or two I stood motionless under his iron talons, then he released me with an exultant whisper:  “Now for our chase!” and made for the door with a spring.  Hastily gulping down a mouthful of arrack from one of the bottles on the table, I followed him, and, guided by the sound of his footsteps before me, groped my way through passages as black as Erebus.

“After a time, which seemed a long one, a small door was flung open in front, and I saw Kossowski glide into the moonlit courtyard and cross the square.  When I too came out he was disappearing into the gaping darkness of the open stable door, and there I overtook him.

“A man who seemed to have been sleeping in a corner jumped up at our entrance, and led out a horse ready saddled.  In obedience to a gruff order from his master, as the latter mounted, he then brought forward another which he had evidently thought to ride himself and held the stirrup for me.

“We came delicately forth, and the Cossack hurriedly barred the great door behind us.  I caught a glimpse of his worn, scarred face by the moonlight, as he peeped after us for a second before shutting himself in; it was stricken with terror.

“The baron trotted briskly toward the kennels, from whence there was now issuing a truly infernal clangor, and, as my steed followed suit of his own accord, I could see how he proceeded dexterously to unbolt the gates without dismounting, while the beasts within dashed themselves against them and tore the ground in their fury of impatience.

“He smiled, as he swung back the barriers at last, and his ‘beauties’ came forth.  Seven or eight monstrous brutes, hounds of a kind unknown to me:  fulvous and sleek of coat, tall on their legs, square-headed, long-tailed, deep-chested; with terrible jaws slobbering in eagerness.  They leaped around and up at us, much to our horses’ distaste.  Kossowski, still smiling, lashed at them unsparingly with his hunting whip, and they responded, not with yells of pain, but with snarls of fury.