This island, where in after years our regiment achieved one of its most brilliant victories, measures about thirty miles each way; but so deeply are its rocky shores embayed by the sea, that no part can be further than three miles from the shore. Ruden, a little islet now lying in der Rugische Bodden, and anciently a part of it, was rent from the mainland by a tempest in the fourteenth century, when the sea burst through the isthmus, and formed a deep channel, through which the largest vessels can sail. The centre of the isle was so fruitful, that it was called the Granary of Stralsund, but now it was all desolate; the cattle and horses had been shot or carried off; the fields lay untilled; the farm-houses were burned or otherwise destroyed; and all the inhabitants had fled to Pomerania, save a few miserable beings who lurked in the half-ruined town of Bergen, or Gingst, a village of linen-weavers, or Arcona, where o a stupendous rock there stands an ancient castle of the Vandals, containing the temple of their four-headed god, Sivantevite, in whose service were kept three hundred horses of spotless white; and whose worship was abolished by Waldemar of Denmark, when he conquered the island in 1168.
Aided by the rising moon, and guided by the landmarks, having frequently studied, during leisure hours at Stralsund, an old map of Pomerania and its islands, drawn by the geographer Ortelius, I led my party directly to that part of Rugen in which Father Ignatius had given me reason to believe Bandolo was lurking, like one of those wild wolves whose baying broke at times upon the solemn stillness of the midnight sky.
Unseen and in silence, we passed various little hamlets, such as Casnevitz on the right, Landau on the left, and Bergen, which lay fifteen miles distant from Stralsund, and was then diminished to about a hundred houses. By one of the country people (who speak a species of Sclavonian) we were directed to turn round the angle of a bay which lay on our left; the waves of the sea were dashing on our right, and we threaded our way along a narrow granite ridge, which leads to the wooded peninsula of Jasmünde, the northern extremity of which was that remarkable chalky cliff, six hundred feet high above the sea—the Stubbenkamer, the highest peak of which is named the Kœningstuhl, or King's-chair. We had now reached the north-east point of the isle, and were more than four-and-twenty miles from Stralsund. The hour was about two in the morning; and thus, thanks to our sturdy limbs and thews, we had got over a devious and difficult route in an incredibly short space of time.
Before us lay a wooded valley covered by dense timber, and darkened by the richest foliage. This was the forest of Jasmünde, which supplied all Rügen with fuel. Beyond it rose the headland called the cape of Stubbenkamer, against whose base of rock the Baltic rolled its waves; and between us and the moon, like a deep basin girdled in by the wooded hills, lay the Black Lake, overlooked by the cavern which, as the Jesuit had assured me, was occupied by Bandolo, and lay directly opposite the path by which we approached its bank.
"Softly now, Phadrig," said I; "we are right upon the trail of the wolf; keep under the foliage, for although the lake is a quarter of a mile broad, he may detect us by the light of that beautiful moon."
"Some one has passed this way but a short time ago," said Phadrig, who was on his knees, examining like a Highland huntsman, the pathway which was covered with grass.
"Ah!—and in what direction?" I asked.
"Towards the water; for in that way the pressure lies, and the leaves and twigs on each side are tossed in that direction."
"You have sharp eyes, Phadrig! can you detect any thing more?"
"Only, that the footmarks are those of a man by their weight and size."