It was true then! I had really seen and heard the witches on the moor. It was not a dream.
I had not long to wait. A tinkling of bells announced the approach of the caravan while I was eating my breakfast.
There were vans and vehicles of all sorts, and all manner of traders; lace merchants, carpet dealers, weavers, goldsmiths, on their way to the fair at Antwerp. They had an escort of soldiers, with red and yellow jackets, and armed with muskets and halberds; also several dragoons with buff waistcoats.
Even the traders were armed with pistols and carbines. All were in high good humor when they entered the inn. The leader of the caravan, a pot-bellied thread dealer, ordered everything that was to be had from kitchen and cellar, and produced from his knapsack a large ham which he shared with some of his companions. Toward the close of the meal, he noticed me, and kindly offered me the gnawed ham-bone.
"Thank you," said I. "In return for this bare bone I will do you a kindness: Take my advice, and don't go any further today; or, if you cannot delay until tomorrow, send a strongly armed troop in advance of your caravan, and let one guard it in the rear, for you are in danger of an attack from the Bocksritter, who will leave your bones as bare as you have left this one you offer me!"
Then I repeated to the entire company what I had heard the witches say. But, a curse rested on me! No one believed me; they laughed at me, ridiculed my "witch-story," said I had dreamed it; and the inn-keeper threatened to cast me out of his house for trying to bring disrepute on it.
He averred that robbers were unknown in that neighborhood—there were no such disreputable characters anywhere but in Brabant and Spain, where they lurked in subterranean caverns like the marmots. Moreover, who was afraid of robbers? Not he!
The caravan's valiant escort were delighted with the prospect of a skirmish with the notorious Bocksritter—let them begin their attack! Everyone of the rascals would soon find himself spitted on an honest bayonet! There was so much boasting about the escort's prowess that at last I concluded the safest way for me to get to Antwerp would be to join the caravan; which I did.
All went well with us until late in the afternoon, when, as we were passing through a pine forest, the robbers suddenly fell upon us.
They appeared so suddenly that one might almost believe they sprang from the earth. They were masked; their clothing was of black buffalo skin, laced with crimson cord. A black cock's feather adorned every hat.