as distant thunder.

"Lie down, Cain!" cries Morok, starting from his seat.

A third roar, of inexpressible ferocity, bursts suddenly on the ear.

"Death! Will you have done," cries the Prophet, rushing towards the trap
door, and addressing a third invisible animal, which bears this ghastly
name.

Notwithstanding the habitual authority of his voice--notwithstanding his
reiterated threats--the brute-tamer cannot obtain silence: on the
contrary, the barking of several dogs is soon added to the roaring of the
wild beasts. Morok seizes a pike, and approaches the ladder; he is about
to descend, when he sees some one issuing from the aperture.

The new-comer has a brown, sun-burnt face; he wears a gray hat, bell
crowned and broad-brimmed, with a short jacket, and wide trousers of
green cloth; his dusty leathern gaiters show that he has walked some
distance; a game-bag is fastened by straps to his back.

"The devil take the brutes!" cried he, as he set foot on the floor; "one
would think they'd forgotten me in three days. Judas thrust his paw
through the bars of his cage, and Death danced like a fury. They don't
know me any more, it seems?"

This was said in German. Morok answered in the same language, but with a
slightly foreign accent.

"Good or bad news, Karl?" he inquired, with some uneasiness.

"Good news."

"You've met them!"

"Yesterday; two leagues from Wittenberg."

"Heaven be praised!" cried Morok, clasping his hands with intense
satisfaction.

"Oh, of course, 'tis the direct road from Russia to France, 'twas a
thousand to one that we should find them somewhere between Wittenberg and
Leipsic."

"And the description?"

"Very close: two young girls in mourning; horse, white; the old man has
long moustache, blue forage-cap; gray topcoat and a Siberian dog at his
heels."

"And where did you leave them?"

"A league hence. They will be here within the hour."

"And in this inn--since it is the only one in the village," said Morok,
with a pensive air.

"And night drawing on," added Karl.

"Did you get the old man to talk?"

"Him!--you don't suppose it!"

"Why not?"

"Go, and try yourself."

"And for what reason?"

"Impossible."

"Impossible--why?"

"You shall know all about it. Yesterday, as if I had fallen in with them
by chance, I followed them to the place where they stopped for the night.
I spoke in German to the tall old man, accosting him, as is usual with
wayfarers, 'Good-day, an