“By my soul’s salvation!” he whispered, pulling Guldon’s arm, “see; those two blazing eyes must surely belong to the fiercest wildcat that ever mewed in a thicket.”
“You are right,” replied old Stayper; “and if he were not marching in front of us, I should rather think that they were the wicked eyes of the demon of Ice—”
“Hush!” cried Kennybol. Then, seizing his carbine, he added, “Truly, it shall not be said that such fine game passed before Kennybol in vain.”
The shot was fired before Guldon Stayper, who threw himself upon the rash hunter, could prevent it. It was not the shrill cry of a wildcat that answered the discharge of the gun; it was the fearful howl of a tiger, followed by a burst of human laughter more frightful still.
No one heard the report as its dying echoes were prolonged from rock to rock; for the flash of the powder had no sooner lighted up the darkness, the fatal crack of the gun had no sooner burst upon the silence, than a thousand terrible voices rang out unexpectedly from mountain, valley, and forest; a shout of “Long live the king!” loud as the rolling thunder, swept over the heads of the rebels, close beside them, behind and before them, and the murderous light of a dreadful volley of musketry, bursting from every hand, and striking them down, at the same time disclosed, amid red clouds of smoke, a battalion behind every rock, and a soldier behind every tree.
XXXVIII.
To arms! to arms! ye captains!
The Prisoner of Ochali.
WE must now ask the reader to retrace with us the day which has just passed, and to return to Skongen, where, while the insurgents were leaving Apsyl-Corh lead-mine, the regiment of musketeers, which we saw on the march in an earlier chapter of this very truthful tale, had just arrived.
After giving a few orders in regard to billeting the soldiers under his command, Baron Vœthaün, colonel of the musketeers, was about to enter the house assigned to him, near the city gate, when a heavy hand was placed familiarly upon his shoulder. He turned and saw a short man, whose face was almost wholly hidden by a broad-brimmed straw hat. He had a bushy red beard, and was closely wrapped in the folds of a gray serge cloak, which, by the tattered cowl still hanging from it, seemed once to have been a hermit’s gown. His hands were covered with thick gloves.
“Well, my good man,” asked the colonel, sharply, “what the deuce do you want?”