"This horse of ours was tired, and we stayed a time on the road," I answered, not without a slight feeling of embarrassment. We should probably have reached the house at Landsberg but for the long halt I had made in telling my story. "But what is your news, major?"
"They are following," he said briefly, and he made a sign to me that something very serious had occurred, which I judged he did not care to tell before Minna.
She saw the gesture and read it also.
"Have they fought?" she asked.
"No, there was no fighting; but the Count von Nauheim has met with a serious accident—very serious."
He thought evidently that any ill news in regard to him might need to be broken carefully to Minna.
"You may speak plainly," I said. "Is he dead?"
"Yes, he is dead. When he ran off in that way, and Signor Praga after him, the shots we heard were fired at the count's horse by his pursuer. His object was not to kill the man, but to prevent his escape. Both shots missed their aim, however, and then he determined to ride the man down. On the brow of the hill, where you saw them disappear, comes a straight bit of road for a couple of miles, at the end of which is a steep, dangerous hill. Both men rode like madmen across the level—Praga, who is a splendid horseman, gaining steadily all the time. Finding that he was being caught, von Nauheim began to punish his horse mercilessly, and when they came to the steep descent the poor brute seems to have stretched himself for a final effort to answer the call on him. For a moment he raced away from the other, but when about half-way down the hill he collapsed suddenly, and dropped like a stone. So frightful was the speed at which they had been going that horse and rider rolled over and over several times in an almost indistinguishable mass. Praga, who was not far behind, had great difficulty in avoiding them and in checking his own horse. When he went back to von Nauheim he found him dead. The stirrups had prevented him from getting free when the smash came, and the horse had fallen on him and rolled over him, breaking his back and crushing the life out of him. He was a horrible sight."