"Oh, one of the men of the alp," was the answer.
"Forward!" said the sergeant-major to his men.
They stooped through the wicket, which closed after them, and Langler and I were left alone. We waited at first under a wood of yews near the outwork, but as there was lightning we drew away again into the open before the portal, dressing our umbrellas against the wind, which anon brewed drizzle. The twilight died out more and more bleakly; the bell continued to toll. We stood silent, waiting. As for me, a fear was in me. I felt that some doom may have overtaken Dees, though, in that case, it seemed hardly to be believed that they would dare to toll the bell in the very presence of the officers of the law; still, I feared; I think that Langler did, too, but he said nothing of it; if we spoke, it was to remark on the strangeness of the lightning, which up there on the heights somehow strikes in different tints, now purplish, now greenish, or rosy. We must have waited forty minutes when seven of the troop came out, bearing pine-torches in their three-fingered gloves, and biting sandwiches. I ran and asked one of them for the news.
"He is not in there," was his answer, "we have searched every nook, and are now going to look round."
"Did you see Baron Kolár inside?"
"No, the baron is not in the castle," he said.
They ran up into the barbacan, ran down again in ten minutes, then ran down the path to the south castle-side, and vanished from our sight.
We abode between fear and hope. No sound was to be heard within or without the burg but the sounds of the winds. It was almost dark before we saw the torches of the troop of seven returning, these having discovered no trace of Dees. They went back into the castle. Some minutes later the whole troop of twenty-seven came out with lanterns and torches. I approached the sergeant-major, to whom I was known, and had some talk with him: all he could say was that the captive named in his commission was nowhere in or near the castle, so that nothing remained to him now but to march back down the mountain.
We saw their torch-lights pass away down the castle-mound, and up to the forest, and lost to sight, and still we loitered by the portal, not knowing what to think or what next to do.
"Perhaps we had better go back to the guest-court," I said at last; "something may be learned there."