"I really don't know."
"But you ought to know. Why don't you make a note of it? The Prince wishes you to go your rounds at once, and you must look particularly sharp after all the places between Toroczko, Banfi-Hunyad, and Bonczhida. Besides the usual questions, you must ask the people whether they have seen any foreign wild beast in the surrounding woods."
"Foreign wild beast?" mechanically repeated the wretched Patrol-officer.
"And if at any place they tell you they have seen such beast, you must go personally into the districts indicated, and search till you come upon its track."
"I cry your Excellency's pardon! but what manner of beast may it be?" asked the student timidly.
"Come, come! don't be afraid! It is neither a seven-headed dragon nor yet a minotaur, but only a young panther."
"A panther!" stammered the terrified Clement.
"You are not expected to catch it," said Csaky cheerily. "You have only to discover its hiding-place and let me know."
"And if this wild beast—whose existence indeed in Transylvania I very much doubt—should stray into the territory of Denis Banfi," asked Clement, "what am I to do then?"
"You must go after it."