"Do you think any dandy likes to see another man surpass him in pistol-shooting, dancing, courting, etc., if that is the pride of his little soul? Women and weak men never forgive that superiority. I amused myself royally that night at Barnewitz to watch the faces they were making at you, of course behind your back, and unfortunately enjoyed the malicious pleasure of doing everything to fan the flame of their jealousy."
"Why unfortunately? I assure you I mind very little whether these gentlemen think well of me or not."
"Oh, no doubt you do. But as long as you live in this neighborhood you are compelled to meet these people, and it is a rule of the simplest wisdom of the world not to offend your fellow-passengers by treading on their corns.--Who on earth comes racing over there across the fields?"
This exclamation was caused by the mysterious horseman whom Oswald had noticed at his arrival, and who was now trotting across the heath so as to reach the road at a distance of perhaps six hundred yards ahead of them.
Oswald told the baron his experience with the horseman.
"We must find that out," said the baron; "let us trot."
They had scarcely trotted a few yards when the man before them started his horse also. It looked as if he were stealthily turning round now and then, but as the twilight had come on it was not easy to be quite sure of that.
"Let us try a gallop," said Oswald; "I see the mysterious man is repeating his manœuvres of the afternoon."
They were on a wide level plain, which sloped off gradually towards the fishermen's village, following the stony and less level ground on which Oldenburg's villa was built. The soil was nothing but a thin crust of earth, covered with meagre heather, and spread directly over the rock itself, so that the horses going faster and faster beat hard upon the stony subsoil.
The mysterious man had no sooner heard the sound of their hoofs than he had followed their example; he was now galloping before his pursuers, keeping exactly the same distance.