Now, vile hag, I hold you!"
He alighted in the ice-cold stream, handing me his bridle. I caught in
the silence the click of the lock of his gun, and that slight noise threw
me into a tremor of apprehension.
"Sperver, what are you about?"
"Don't be alarmed; it is only to frighten her."
"Very well, then, but no blood. Remember what I told you--the ball which
strikes the Pest slays the count!"
"Don't trouble yourself," was the answer.
He went away without further parley. I could hear the splash of his feet
in the water; then I saw his tall figure emerge at the opening of the
dark glen, black against a purple background. He stood five minutes
motionless. Attentive, bending forward, I looked and listened, still
moving onward. As he returned I was but a few yards from him.
"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.
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