o Tornea, was found slain
upon the road between here and Lulea.'

'And you have yet made no effort to apprehend the perpetrators of the
deed?' asked the governor discontentedly. 'If the police do their duty
such transgressors cannot long escape the vengeance of the laws.'

'The waste and desolate condition of that region,' said the sheriff by
way of excuse, 'facilitates the flight of the robbers and renders
pursuit difficult. The inhabitants of the scattered houses and small
hamlets fear to seize a single robber while their helpless situation
exposes them to the vengeance of the whole band, which numbers thirty
men. Their leader is called Black Naddock, and always has his face
colored black when he goes out upon his predatory excursions.'

'You must cause strict search to be made,' directed the governor.
'Write to the sheriff of Umea, in my name, for as many men as he can
spare. Until they arrive you must do the best you can with your
dragoons. They need not accompany us. We are numerous and used to
danger. Should the robbers venture to attack us, we should suffer less
from the encounter than they.'

He entered his carriage and the whole company continued their route,
still in a northerly direction, by the little town of Lulea, where the
greater and less Lulea Elf roll their mingled waters into the sea,
until they arrived at Ranea, where the gulf of Bothnia forms an angle
and the road turns off to the east. So far nothing had occurred to
justify the apprehensions of the sheriff, and the caution of the
travelers, which had hitherto kept them in close companionship, that
they might be ready to aid each other, began to relax. Megret, whom
Christine jestingly accused of riding near the carriage not for hers
but his own safety, had angrily ridden forward; and Arwed, giving way
to his own reflections, had turned into a fir-wood on the left, in
which he followed a foot-path leading toward the north. He might have
followed this path for the space of an hour, when he heard at a
distance ahead of him a sudden cry for help. Giving the spur to his
horse, he flew in the direction whence the voice came. He soon came in
view of Megret contending with four ill-looking fellows, who had seized
his horse by the bridle and furiously beset him with cudgels and
cutlasses.

'However little he may deserve it,' said the youth to himself, 'one
must help him in his extremity!' and, with a pistol in his left, and a
drawn sword in his right h