Added to this was the actual and pressing danger arising from the fact that the man who had pursued her had escaped to carry the tidings of her whereabouts to his companions and bring them down upon us, perhaps in force.
The situation was growing tighter with every fresh turn, and I made up my mind to rush matters and get away at once. I would not wait for the return of my guide, but take the risk of finding my way alone.
I had just made this decision when Gartski came running round the tent with a white, scared face. He stopped some yards short of the hut, as if loath to come too near the abode of the accursed one, and crossed himself.
“The horses have been killed, Burgwan. Will you come to the shed to Karasch?”
The news, if true, was ill enough to make me change colour, and I went back with him.
“We are all under a curse. It is witch’s work,” he said in a curiously awed tone; and he wrung his hands and crossed himself again. I was beginning to regard that gesture of devotion with a pretty considerable dislike by that time.
The news was true enough. The three horses lay dead on the shed floor, each in a pool of blood; and on the quarter of each of them a small ring of blood was to be seen some two inches across. Peering into the shed stood the horse from which Karasch had just dismounted, his neck outstretched and his ears cocked in fear.
Karasch and Petrov were inside, preternaturally grave and awe-struck. Both looked as frightened as Gartski when he had come running with the news to me; and Karasch pointed ominously in turn at the marks on each of the dead animals.
“The witch’s mark. It’s always there,” he said.
It was unquestionably very strange, and I looked solemn enough no doubt to lead them to believe I was beginning to share their own superstitious fears. It was about the worst thing that could have occurred at such a juncture; and for the moment I could think of nothing but the possible consequences of so disastrous an occurrence.