“I was pluming myself upon this, and telling myself that I, at any rate, should be excused, even if I lost hope of recompense for my care of the child, when Father Mark of a sudden stopped us in our walk and raised his hands warningly.
“‘Hush!’ said he; ‘I thought that I heard a woman’s cry!’
“We all listened with bent ears, but so loud was the howling of the brutes about us that we caught no sound, and the priest spoke again.
“‘I am sure that I was not deceived,’ said he; ‘it was a cry that I heard, and it came from the hamlet yonder.’”
CHAPTER XV
THE APPARITION IN THE CLOISTERS
“The hamlet which he pointed to was known as Trenak, a little settlement of six houses in the hollow of the woods. No sooner were his words spoken than I had great joy of them, saying that surely Christine must have taken refuge in the village. And in this I was warranted when we had waited—it might be the space of a minute—for then we heard the cry which he had heard; and with a loud answer we all ran together down the road; those that had feared now heading the company, and each man very solicitous to be first upon the scene. Yet we had not gone two hundred yards from the spot when we were all huddling together again, and the sound of a gun-shot twice repeated had stiffened the limbs of every man among us.
“‘Hark to that!’ cried the steward, over whose brow the sweat was pouring despite the heaviness of the frost; ‘whoever is down yonder is at close quarters with the pack. God help them!’
“‘It was a Winchester rifle that was fired,’ exclaimed a woodlander. ‘There is but one hand in the province which holds a Winchester, and that is the hand of the Lord Count.’
“‘You say well,’ cried I; ‘the Holy Mother help us to tell him the news.’
“I have never seen men so sorely troubled, excellency. Though they had no alternative but to run on swiftly to the help of their master, yet each desired his fellow to be first, and the excuses they made, some dropping their guns, others rekindling their torches, were a thing to hear. Only at the last, and when we heard a new cry of terror, and the rifle was fired repeatedly, did the urgency of the danger drive them to forget all else, and send them headlong to the turn of the road whence the one street of the village is to be observed.