or the
purpose of frightening them, never struck our Normans.

"When they had gone, we approached the spot," continued the aged
knight of Senville, "and found foot marks in the snow, which, from
the previous fall, lay lightly on the ground, for the storm of
tonight had hardly set in. There were marks of one of our parties,
and we saw by torchlight strange footprints, as if they had been
tracked by two or three daring foes--we thought we distinguished
hoof marks."

A terrible silence fell upon the whole assembly, as the idea that
they had been contending with demons, and not with mortals, fell
upon them, and perhaps the bravest would have hesitated to enter
the forest that night, however dire the need.

The baron knew this; yet when supper was over, when the hour of
retiring to rest had arrived, and still there were no signs of his
son, he selected a band of trusty warriors, who, in spite of the
story of the demons, which Eustace's men had made known throughout
the castle, would not be untrue to their lord.

And with these men, while all the rest slept, he penetrated the
forest, and with torches and horns made night hideous, until cold
and fatigue drove him home, his heart heavier than before, his
desire unaccomplished.

He threw himself upon his couch, only to be haunted by dreadful
dreams, in which he saw his son surrounded by the demons of Sir
Eustace's tale, and in every other variety of danger or distress,
like the constantly shifting scenes of a modern theatre.

And in all these dreams the "Dismal Swamp" played a prominent part.

Day broke at last, cold but bright; the first beams of the sun
gladdened the castle, reflected keenly from the white ground, the
trees hung with frozen snow, which had broken many branches to the
ground--the winter seemed to have come in good earnest.

Early in the day, a hundred men, well armed and mounted, led by the
baron, again entered the forest. They reached, in due course, the
part of the wood assigned to Etienne on the previous day.

The snow had effaced all tracks, but Sir Eustace speedily found the
spot where he had left the dead man, and there was the corpse,
stiff and frozen, but it was evident that the knight's description
given the previous evening was all too correct. The man had died in
great horror and anguish; the arrow yet remained in his body. It
was, as in the earlier cases, one of English make--a clumsy shaft,
unlike the polished Norman workmanship.

"We