“I hardly think so. In that case we must follow him up or wait for another opportunity.”
Galabin’s anticipation was correct. When they had reached the high ground by a detour, they could see through the trees the man still standing there in his watchful attitude.
“Now,” Von Tressen murmured, “let us get almost up to him without attracting his attention, and then show ourselves. It will be too late for him to run away then.”
The plan was carried out with perfect success. The man was evidently too absorbed in his watching to be aware of their approach; giving no sign of alertness or of moving from his station. Only when they suddenly emerged into the open did he withdraw his gaze from the farm lying below in the valley, and turn it quickly, with a kind of fierce suspicion, on the figures which had come within its focus. He made a quick movement and instinctively lifted his gun from the ground, only to replace it and resume his attitude, as watching till the two should have passed on.
But that was scarcely their intention.
“Good-day, mein Herr,” Galabin said as they both saluted the man. “You are a sportsman like ourselves. May we hope that you have been more successful than we?”
They rather expected a churlish reply; but, as Galabin spoke, the somewhat fierce, stern expression on the man’s face relaxed, and he answered almost laughingly—
“We are companions in ill-luck. I, too, have nothing to show. Perhaps in my case it has been bad markmanship, want of skill rather than of luck. What I have hit has not been worth the picking up. But then the forest is so beautiful that it repays one for bad sport.”
He made a sweep with his hand towards the valley stretching away below them.
“You are staying in the forest, mein Herr?” Galabin enquired with careless politeness. “At the Schloss Rozsnyo, perhaps?”