Kunz, who possessed
estates in the neighborhood of Tronka Castle, which had been burned
down, wrote to their stewards and to the farmers living there for
information about the black horses which had been lost on that
unfortunate day and not heard of since. But on account of the complete
destruction of the castle and the massacre of most of the inhabitants,
all that they could learn was that a servant, driven by blows dealt
with the flat of the incendiary's sword, had rescued them from the
burning shed in which they were standing, but that afterward, to the
question where he should take them and what he should do with them, he
had been answered by a kick from the savage madman. The Squire's gouty
old housekeeper, who had fled to Meissen, assured the latter, in reply
to his written inquiry, that on the morning after that horrible night
the servant had gone off with the horses toward the Brandenburg
border, but all inquiries which were made there proved vain, and some
error seemed to lie at the bottom of this information, as the Squire
had no servant whose home was in Brandenburg or even on the road
thither. Some men from Dresden, who had been in Wilsdruf a few days
after the burning of Tronka Castle, declared that, at the time named,
a groom had arrived in that place, leading two horses by the halter,
and, as the animals were very sick and could go no further, he had
left them in the cow-stable of a shepherd who had offered to restore
them to good condition. For a variety of reasons it seemed very
probable that these were the black horses for which search was being
made, but persons coming from Wilsdruf declared that the shepherd had
already traded them off again, no one knew to whom; and a third rumor,
the originator of which could not be discovered, even asserted that
the two horses had in the mean time passed peacefully away and been
buried in the carrion pit at Wilsdruf.

This turn of affairs, as can be easily understood, was the most
pleasing to the lords Hinz and Kunz, as they were thus relieved of the
necessity of fattening the blacks in their stables, the Squire, their
cousin, no longer having any stables of his own. They wished, however,
for the sake of absolute security, to verify this circumstance. Sir
Wenzel Tronka, therefore, in his capacity as hereditary feudal lord
with the right of judicature, addressed a letter to the magistrates at
Wilsdruf, in which, after a minute description of the black horses,
whi