"What is he?" I inquired, carelessly.
"A forester of the Baron Von Freyenthal."
"Indeed!" said I, becoming suddenly interested. "I met such a person this morning. Does he wear a fur cap and deerskin boots, and has he a large black shaggy wolf dog?"
"Exactly, Mein Herr—you have met my husband Karl Karsseboom and his dog Jager."
"If I meet him again!" thought I, with a hand on my pistol.
After this information, and the discovery of who was my landlord (ah! if the fellow had returned when I was asleep!) I resolved to lose no time in endeavouring to reach the ford of the Lahn at any risk. Whoever was there, the night would favour me, and I was alike forewarned and forearmed.
I studied closely the features of the country from the cottage window, and repeatedly consulted a little pocket map of the principality of Waldeck, which had been given to me by Gervais Monjoy, two means of topographical knowledge that availed me little, when, a few hours after, without encountering the amiable Karl Karsseboom, I found myself on the rugged German highway alone, bewildered, and floundering along in the dark in my military jack-boots, with a heavy storm of snow drifting in my face, and the stormy and frosty north wind, which was so keen and cold that at times it well-nigh choked me.
CHAPTER XIII.
LAST OF THE EMERALD RING.
The snow-flakes were thick and blinding; the roadway became less and less discernible as the white mantle of winter deepened; buried under it, shrubs, tall weeds, and everything that could mark the borders of the path, a very rough and occasionally steep one, disappeared, and I wandered on wearily and at random without knowing in what direction.