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.

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