"Where did you come from last?" I asked, impatiently.
"Oldenburg, Mein Herr."
"Have you seen any thing of the Imperialists?"
"Heaven be blessed, no! They would have made but a mouthful of me. I am a poor, inoffensive man—a dealer in cattle, Mein Herr—I am going to Heilinghafen."
"You will find customers enough and to spare, my Schönburger; for Duke Bernard is there in quarters with eight thousand hungry men."
The trader appeared somewhat startled by this intelligence, but politely begged me to be assured that the Imperialists had not yet passed the Stoer; and then asked if I required his services in any way—on which I thanked him, and we parted. He galloped off.
His last observations had been less brief than others; they caused something of a familiar voice and manner to flash upon my memory. I paused and looked back; he had turned aside from the Heilinghafen road, and was riding headlong through the ripe corn-field in an opposite direction, but far beyond our reach.
"Oh no!—it cannot be—and yet, his voice! Fool that I am—was I blind?" I exclaimed.
"What—what is it?" asked Lieutenant Lumsdaine and Phaclrig Mhor together.
"But for his white eyebrows and beardless face, I could have sworn that was Bandolo."