“That is a horse that the wolves are after—or they’ve got him!” exclaimed Vassilitzi. He and I were leading now, for the track was only wide enough for two to ride abreast. We quickened our pace, though we were going at a smart trot, and as a second scream reached our ears, ending abruptly in a queer gurgle, we saw in front a shapeless heap, from which two shadowy forms started up growling, but turned tail and vanished, as the other wolf had done, as we galloped towards them.
The fallen horse was a shaggy country nag, with a rope bridle and no saddle. The wolves had fastened on his throat, but he was not yet dead, and as I jumped down and stood over him he made a last convulsive effort to rise, glaring at me piteously with his blood-flecked eyes. We saw then that his fore-leg was broken, and I decided the best thing to do was to put the beast out of his misery. So I did it right then with a shot in his ear.
“He has been ridden hard; he was just about spent when he stumbled on that fallen trunk and fell, and that was some time since,” said Vassilitzi, looking critically at the quivering, sweat-drenched carcase. “Now, what does it mean? If the wolves had chased him,—and they are not so bold now as in the winter,—they would have had him down before, and his rider too; but they had only just found him.”
He stared ahead and shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man who dismisses an unimportant question to which he cannot find a ready answer.
The others caught up with us as I got into my saddle again, and we made no delay, as the incident was not of sufficient moment.
We passed one or two huts, that appeared to be uninhabited, and came at last to the open, or rather to a space of a few hundred acres, ringed round by the forest, and saw in the centre of the clearing a low, rambling old house of stone, enclosed with a high wall, and near the tall gateway a few scattered wooden huts.
Some fowls and pigs were straying about, and a few dejected looking cows and a couple of horses were grazing near at hand; but there was no sign of human life.
“Diable! Where are they all?” exclaimed Vassilitzi, frowning and biting his mustache.
“What place is this?” I asked him.
“Mine. It was a hunting lodge once; now it represents all my—our—possessions. But where are the people?”