"No, he wasn't there then, but he came directly after, and I was furious because he had taken Brownlock; besides, what business had he there? I told him so too, and said he must go back at once; but he wouldn't; people had seen him ride away, and where should he say he had been when this story came out? I had offered him the package, but he knocked it out of my hand, and it lay on the ground between us, and I said it might stay there. 'So it can for aught I care,' said he; 'I didn't do it for the money;' and then he asked what had become of you? I gave him a short answer, for I was angry, and then he said I must turn back at once, and--and--'Do it alone, sir,' said I, 'I'll have nothing more to do with it.' He begged my pardon, but I wouldn't make up, out of pure ill-temper, and now he again grew anxious about what account he could give of his whereabouts during this time, till I said to him: 'As you have Brownlock under you, sir, you can just as well ride across the bog, and then you will get to Neuenhof as soon as if you had ridden away from Dollan directly after the gentlemen: I mean, of course, over the road.' He saw this too, but his courage failed, although he generally had plenty for such things, and I myself had ridden across the bog a week before under his own eyes; so I said to him: 'Then do what you choose, I must go and knock up the Prebrows now, or I shall come in for all the blame,' and then he rode away, and it was a splendid sight--I could see it distinctly, for the moon had come out--and the water dashed up under the hoofs--yes, it was a splendid sight to see how he rode."
Hinrich walked on a few steps in silence; suddenly he stopped short.
"And the way he has treated me is a sin and a shame; may God punish me if I don't pay him for it. He promised me ten per cent, of all Brownlock won, and he had ten thousand in his book then; but it may easily amount to as much again. And he knows I would give one of my hands to see Brownlock on the course, and have people point to me and say: 'That's Hinrich Scheel, who trained him; he understands those things better than all the English jockeys.' O Lord! Lord! and I'm to do all this for him, while he leaves me for a whole week in this kennel of Rahnkes' and I'm to come to Goritz the night before the boat, in which I'm to take passage, sails for Mecklenburg, and I must meet him in Goritz woods, and get the two thousand he promised me, but he was not there, and probably thought, 'He must go tomorrow, with or without the money;' but I'll pay him for it, by Heavens! I'll pay him for it."
"That would cost you quite as much as him," replied Gotthold; "or do you think the law will set you free because you did everything solely for your master's sake?"
"The law, sir! You won't deliver me up to the law," cried Hinrich.
"And if I should, could you blame me for it?"
Hinrich stopped short, but there was no possibility of escape. Jochen Prebrow's heavy hand rested on his shoulder, and Gotthold had just cocked the pistol, whose barrel glittered in the light of the nearest beacon, of which they were already within a very short distance. A single cry would summon the watchman, if he chose to push matters to extremities.
"I am in your power, sir," said he, "and I am not. Neither you nor any other man shall compel me to repeat what I have just told you before a court of justice. I may have imposed upon you with a false tale."
"That excuse will not avail you much, Hinrich; we have proofs that the money was not lost, but stolen and placed in your master's hands."
And in a few words he told him the contents of Wollnow's letter, adding what he had just learned from old Boslaf, that while searching the bog--to the great astonishment of the men--they had followed the hoof-prints of a horse several hundred paces; and Hinrich's denial would produce little effect in opposition to this and other well-established facts.