"While you were all fighting, I did not wish to be idle," replied Skirmen. "I soon found my little norback: he nearly pawed me to death with joy, the dear fellow! The other two horses were also grazing by the river. Giving a smack to the hack I rode, I let him gallop home; and, had it not been for my little norback, I should have been sitting in the mud."
"Thou art a devil's imp!" said Thorstenson; "and, if it were not that thou art so stunted, there might be made a doughty wight of thee."
"You, too, were stunted once on a time," replied Skirmen, offended; "else Satan was the mother of you."
They were now all mounted, and Thorstenson was already several paces in advance.
"But my poor huntsmen!" exclaimed Sir Rimaardson, pausing: "might any of them yet be saved?"
"I saw them hurled over," replied Skirmen: "it was a shocking sight. I was already over the river, but I rode in again to save them. The black steed was nimble, and swam ashore; but the three Wallachians are in the mud."
"But the men--the unfortunate huntsmen?"
"Alas! that was the most lamentable part of the affair," replied Skirmen, with a light sigh: "they had neither life nor a whole limb. I had them drawn to land, and said, hastily, three paters and an ave for their souls. Their corpses an old female peasant promised me to care for."
"Brother, brother! this blood is upon thee!" sighed Rimaardson, with a choking voice, and giving his horse the spur.
They shortly overtook Sir Thorstenson, and pursued their journey in silence, and in earnest thought.