"Stop! Give me that letter, or I'll kill you."
"No, you won't! One shriek from me and you are lost."
"Where's the letter?"
"You surely don't think me fool enough to tell you! I don't carry it on my person, so you need not look for it!"
The man angrily threw the purse towards her, whereupon she tripped to the entrance of the cavern, fetched from thence her crutch and unscrewed its handle, and drew forth from the hollow of the stick a crumpled silken roll, which the man unravelled and began to read, and as he read his face began to tremble for joy, disbelief, and surprise.
"If all this really happens, what you have now received is a mere earnest of what you will receive hereafter."
"Didn't I tell you so?" returned the beldame complacently. "Didn't I say that you'd gladly pay me in advance at least one-half of the sum stipulated?"
"Now, take heed that nothing is observed!"
"Pst! Go round by the stream, the usual path is to-day infested by marauding parties."
With these words the two shapes glided hastily out of the cavern, and vanished in different directions among the thickets of the wood.