front a shapeless heap,
from which two shadowy forms started up growling, but turned tail and
vanished, as the other wolf had done, as we galloped towards them.

The fallen horse was a shaggy country nag, with a rope bridle and no
saddle. The wolves had fastened on his throat, but he was not yet dead,
and as I jumped down and stood over him he made a last convulsive effort
to rise, glaring at me piteously with his blood-flecked eyes. We saw
then that his fore-leg was broken, and I decided the best thing to do
was to put the beast out of his misery. So I did it right then with a
shot in his ear.

"He has been ridden hard; he was just about spent when he stumbled on
that fallen trunk and fell, and that was some time since," said
Vassilitzi, looking critically at the quivering, sweat-drenched carcase.
"Now, what does it mean? If the wolves had chased him,--and they are not
so bold now as in the winter,--they would have had him down before, and
his rider too; but they had only just found him."

He stared ahead and shrugged his shoulders with the air of a man who
dismisses an unimportant question to which he cannot find a ready
answer.

The others caught up with us as I got into my saddle again, and we made
no delay, as the incident was not of sufficient moment.

We passed one or two huts, that appeared to be uninhabited, and came at
last to the open, or rather to a space of a few hundred acres, ringed
round by the forest, and saw in the centre of the clearing a low,
rambling old house of stone, enclosed with a high wall, and near the
tall gateway a few scattered wooden huts.

Some fowls and pigs were straying about, and a few dejected looking cows
and a couple of horses were grazing near at hand; but there was no sign
of human life.

"_Diable!_ Where are they all?" exclaimed Vassilitzi, frowning and
biting his mustache.

"What place is this?" I asked him.

"Mine. It was a hunting lodge once; now it represents all
my--our--possessions. But where are the people?"

He rode to the nearest hut, kicked open the crazy door, and shouted
imperatively; but there was no reply. The whole place was deserted.

Thence to the gateway, with its solid oak doors. He jumped down and
tried them, petulantly muttering what certainly sounded like a string of
oaths. But they were locked and barred.

The others rode up, Anne and Loris first, the men straggling after.

Anne was swaying in her saddle; her face was ashy pale. I think sh