"The track that it would have taken me a week to find, you have got at once. There is something behind this."
"Where do you see it, then?"
"Come, don't pretend to be looking at your feet," and pointing to a scarcely perceptible white streak at some distance ahead of us, he said:
"There it is."
He started off at a gallop. I followed him, and a moment later we leaped from our saddles. It was indeed the Black Plague's track.
"I should like to know," said Sperver, folding his arms, "how the devil that trace came to be here!"
"Don't let that trouble you."
"You're right, Gaston. Don't mind what I say. I talk nonsense sometimes. The principal thing now is to find out where this track leads."
The huntsman knelt on the snow. I was all ears, he all attention.
"It is a fresh track," he said at the first glance; "last night's. As I thought, Gaston, during the Count's last attack the hag was prowling about the Castle."