The new-comer was wrapped in sealskin, like a Greenlander, his outlandish garb hanging stiffly about him. His beard was black; and thick hair of the same color, falling over his red eyebrows, concealed a hideous face. Neither his hands nor his arms were visible.
“Oh, it is you, is it?” said the soldier, with a loud laugh. “And who, then, do you say it was, my fine gentleman, that had the honor of capturing that infernal giant?”
The little man shook his head, and said with a malicious smile: “It was I.”
At this instant Baron Vœthaün fancied that he recognized the mysterious being who had warned him at Skongen of the arrival of the rebels; Chancellor d’Ahlefeld thought he recognized his host at Arbar ruin; and the private secretary, a certain peasant from Oëlmœ, who wore a similar dress, and who had pointed out the lair of Hans of Iceland. But the three being separated, they could not impart to one another this fleeting impression, which the differences of feature and costume, afterward observed, must have soon dissipated.
“Indeed! it was you, was it?” ironically observed the soldier. “If it were not for your Greenland seal’s costume, by the look which you cast at me, I should be tempted to take you for another ridiculous dwarf, who tried to pick a quarrel with me at the Spladgest, a fortnight or so ago. It was the very day that they brought in the body of Gill Stadt, the miner.”
“Gill Stadt!” broke in the little man, with a shudder.
“Yes, Gill Stadt!” repeated the soldier, with an air of indifference,—“the rejected lover of a girl who was sweetheart to a comrade of mine, and for whose sake he died, like the fool that he was.”
The little man said in hollow tones: “Was there not also the body of an officer of your regiment at the Spladgest?”
“Exactly; I shall remember that day as long as I live. I forgot that it was the hour for the tattoo, and I was arrested when I got back to the fort. That officer was Captain Dispolsen.”
At this name the private secretary rose.