"Good—we are on the scent, then!"
"A barefooted man," added one of our soldiers; "see, Sergeant Mhor M'Farquhar, the blades of grass are neither broken nor cut by brogue nor boot, but just pressed flat."
"Eachin M'Donuil is right, sir," said Phadrig, erecting his tall figure; "and moreover," he added, sinking his voice, "at every second footmark there is the angular indent of a musket-butt. I will therefore say that the man has been armed, barefooted, and weary, and leaned on his gun as he walked towards the loch side; but there we lose the track."
"He has either swum over, or gone round by the water-side," said I, "for the cave lies opposite."
By stooping down, we could perceive under the dark brow of a wooded cliff, and close to the water, a darker spot, which we had no doubt was the identical and primitive habitation we were in search of.
"Let us separate," said Phadrig; "I will go round by the left, with Eachin M'Donuil and his brother; if you, Captain Rollo, will take the right, with their two comrades."
"Very good, Phadrig, and we will steal softly towards the cavern, which must be our meeting-place. Look once more to your muskets and powder—be wary, as if you were tracking a wild bull by the shores of Lochindall or the Mull of O'e at home in Isla—and every man of you shall have a piece of gold to string at his bonnet-lug for this night's work, and more."
We separated, and, diving into the coppice, crept stealthily round the lake, pausing frequently to listen to any passing sound; but all was still as the grave. Over the bare scalp of the Stubbenkamer, the cold white moonlight streamed into the silent and wooded hollow, silvering the leaves, and the still, waveless surface of the lake. Not a branch stirred, for the wind was breathless, and the fleecy clouds were floating unmoved in the wide blue sky.
As we crept round with panther-like steps, and with that noiseless motion which the foresters of the Highland woods naturally acquired, like the Indians of America, by their habits of war and hunting, my mind was fully occupied by the anticipation of capturing Bandolo, and meting out upon his head the punishment which his life of atrocity so well merited, and which I believed no human hand could make sufficiently severe, there recurred to me a story (concerning this very lake in the wood of Jasmünde) which I remembered to have read in Cluverius; and which, if I had related it to my followers, might have put them all to flight; for although they were fellows who would have faced Satan himself by daylight, the same personage in the dark was quite another matter.
Cluverius asserts that this Black Lake is of wondrous depth; that it is bottomless; and, though teeming with fish, is the abode of demons, who will not permit either boats to swim on its surface, or nets to sink into its waters, which, like the wood around them, were sacred to the goddess Hertha, and her brother Nikelas, on whose altars the early Christians were yearly sacrificed. Cluverius relates, that in his own time some of the Rugii brought a boat to the lake, one evening, and returned next day with the intention of fishing; but, lo! to their astonishment, it had disappeared. After a long search, the boat was discovered, thrown on the top of one of the most gigantic beech-trees, and dangling far beyond their reach. As they shrunk back, they muttered one to another—