Having taken stock of his surroundings, the spy stretched himself on the ground, lying on his right side with his face pillowed on his arm. His ear almost touching the ground enabled him to detect sounds quicker than he might otherwise have done. He was badly in need of a rest and sleep, especially as he was contemplating another all-night tramp; but he knew that he was a noisy sleeper, and on that account he feared to run the risk.
Presently a dog barked. The sound came from a long distance. It was a long-drawn, deep bark, that boded no good to the fugitive.
"Those English have brought bloodhounds to track me," he muttered. "Well, I can hold out until I have only one cartridge left. They will never again take me alive."
At almost the next moment he felt himself seized by an almost uncontrollable panic. He started to crawl from his lair and run blunderingly and aimlessly across the open moors, if only to put a greater distance between him and the deep-baying hounds.
On second thoughts he decided to remain and hold his own. Nearer and nearer came the unpleasant sounds, until the spy was able to see the animals.
There were two enormous bloodhounds, unmuzzled, but held in leashes by two powerfully built men, whose heated faces and laboured breathing bore testimony to the strength and speed of the powerful brutes. Behind them rode a sub-inspector and three policemen, neither of whom was armed so far as the spy could see.
Unerringly the bloodhounds followed the invisible track taken by the fugitive until they reached a spot at less than eighty yards from his place of concealment. Here the animals began circling, sniffing the while and almost dragging the arms of their custodians from their sockets.
Breathlessly Oberfurst kept watch. He remembered that he had crossed a small stream close to the place where the hounds were held up. By so doing he had unwittingly destroyed the scent.
"The first stream we've had to cross, worse luck," said the inspector. "I had my doubts concerning the brutes, and now we're baulked."
"They'll pick up the scent on the other side, sir, never fear," rejoined one of the keepers confidently. "It will be a hundred pounds easily earned."