Then, however, his disappointment was not small to find the usual relics of a gipsy resting-place, but nothing else. A few rags, a leaf of an old black-letter book, feathers of many birds, and fur of more than one sort of beast, several charred spots, and a large stick or two, were to be seen upon the ground; but nothing else met the eye in any direction, and Manners paused for a moment to lay out what was to be done next.
"Go back for a hundred yards," he said, at length, turning to his servant; "and then make a slow circle at that distance quite round this pit, seeing whether you can find fresh footmarks in any direction."
The servant obeyed, and in a few minutes, exclaimed, "Here are a great many, sir, along this road, which seems to go down the other side of the hill. Horses' feet, too, and cart-wheels, quite fresh."
"Go on quite round," rejoined his master. "What do you find more?"
"Here are a good many scattered footmarks in this direction, sir," replied the man when he had arrived at a spot situated exactly between Manners and the little tumulus; "but they do not tend in any particular way that I can see."
Manners rode up; but the footprints were turned in many directions, and were of various sizes, some seemingly fresh, and some half-effaced by others. Nothing, therefore, could be discovered from the traces on that particular spot; but as Colonel Manners had every reason for believing that his friend must have approached the gipsy encampment from that side, he took the pains of dismounting, and tracing the different steps some way upon each of the several paths in which they led. It was in vain, however; the whole were so puzzled and intermixed that he could make nothing of them, and had his foot in the stirrup to mount again when De Vaux's servant came down from the mound, at full gallop, exclaiming, "There is certainly some one watching there, sir, at the edge of that wood. I have seen them come out and in three times. There! there! Do you see, sir? He is coming more forward now."
Could Manners have bent down with his attendants, so as to escape the attention of the person who approached, he would certainly have done so; but though they might have hidden themselves among the neighbouring slopes, their horses were not so easily concealed, and the sandpit was now too far off to afford them a screen. A moment's thought showed him that it would be best to stand quite still, as the man, whoever he was, was still advancing. The next moment, however, the stranger stopped--went on again a few steps farther--stopped again; and then, turning precipitately, made his way back towards the wood.
Manners was in the saddle in a moment; and could speed have accomplished what he desired, the person who so evidently sought to avoid observation would not have escaped, but the distance he had advanced from the wood had not been more than a hundred yards; and long ere Manners's horse could reach the skirt of the forest ground all vestige of him he pursued was lost in an intricate labyrinth of trees and bushes, which set further search at defiance. The two men came up shortly after, while Manners was pausing disappointed by the edge of the wood; and De Vaux's servant, touching his hat, called the colonel's attention to some footmarks, which they had passed as they followed him. Manners instantly turned back, and in a dip of the ground, where some mud had been left by a half dried up pool, he discovered the distinct traces of two different sets of footsteps. Both were small, and neither seemed to have been left by the tread of a peasant; but one was evidently the mark of a boot, cut by some neat and fashionable maker; and De Vaux's servant declared that he could swear to that print having been made by his master's foot.
Nothing remained, then, but to follow these footsteps as far as possible; but the difficulty of doing so was not small, for there were but few spots of a nature similar to that in which the traces had been found, and the ground around was in general covered by short parched grass, or long tufts of rushes. At length, however, at the distance of more than fifty yards farther on, in the exact direction in which the other steps pointed, Manners discovered the mark of a heel, and this again led them to more steps. Several times the traces seemed lost entirely, and several times Colonel Manners was obliged to return to the last he had seen, and set off anew; but still the positive assertions of his friend's servant that the footsteps were those of De Vaux caused Manners to persist, till at length he succeeded in tracing the prints to the edge of the steep bank, to which, as we have seen, the gipsy had really led his unfortunate visiter.
Manners now paused, with some very painful apprehensions gathering thick upon him. Thither, it is true, De Vaux must have come willingly with some other person, for there was not the slightest appearance either of haste or resistance in any of the footmarks they had seen; but it was in that very wood, near which they now were, that the report of fire-arms had been heard the night before; and, as far as Manners had been able to discover, it had been in the precise direction to which the steps had now guided them. What, too, he asked himself, could be De Vaux's inducement to approach so lonely a place as this--by a path which led to no other object--in the dead of the night, and with a person to whom it appeared he must have been a stranger? What, too, could be that person's object in leading him hither at such a time?