alarm reached the other side of the encampment distinctly enough to
direct their motions to her summons. Half a dozen yagers and an officer
at length presented themselves; but the landlord had disappeared, she
knew not in what direction. Upon explaining the circumstances of the
robbery, however, the officer caused his men to light a number of
torches, and advance into the wood. But the ground was so impracticable
in most places, from tangled roots and gnarled stumps of trees, that it
was with difficulty they could keep their footing. They were also
embarrassed by the crossing shadows From the innumerable boughs above
them; and a situation of greater perplexity for effective pursuit it
was scarcely possible to imagine. Everywhere they saw alleys, arched
high overhead, and resembling the aisles of a cathedral, as much in
form as in the perfect darkness which reigned in both at this solemn
hour of midnight, stretching away apparently without end, but more and
more obscure, until impenetrable blackness terminated the long vista.
Now and then a dusky figure was seen to cross at some distance; but
these were probably deer; and when loudly challenged by the yagers, no
sound replied but the vast echoes of the forest. Between these
interminable alleys, which radiated as from a centre at this point,
there were generally thickets interposed. Sometimes the wood was more
open, and clear of all undergrowth--shrubs, thorns, or brambles--for a
considerable distance, so that a single file of horsemen might have
penetrated for perhaps half a mile; but belts of thicket continually
checked their progress, and obliged them to seek their way back to some
one of the long vistas which traversed the woods between the frontiers
of Suabia and Bavaria.

In this perplexity of paths, the officer halted his party to consider
of his further course. At this moment one of the yagers protested that
he had seen a man's hat and face rise above a thicket of bushes,