ou shall have your share of the booty!" said Lieutenant von
Matusch, laying his heavy, shaky hand on Feodor's shoulder. "We never
intended to cheat you out of your portion, but you were not here, and
therefore up to this time you could have no share in it."

As Feodor pressed him with questions, he related how they had formed
a compact, and pledged themselves to have their booty and captives in
common.

"We have caught more than a dozen head, and they have ransomed
themselves handsomely," cried Major von Fritsch. "We have just sent
out ten of our men again on the chase."

"Oh! I hope they will bring in just such another handsome young girl
as they did yesterday," cried Matusch, rubbing his hands with delight.
"Ah, that was a pleasant evening! She offered us treasures, diamonds,
and money; she promised us thousands if we would only release her at
once! She wept like a Madonna, and wrung her snow-white hands, and all
that only made her prettier still."

Colonel Feodor looked at him in anger. In contact with such coarse and
debauched companions his more refined self rose powerful within him,
and his originally noble nature turned with loathing from this barren
waste of vulgarity and infamy.

"I hope," said he, warmly, "that you have behaved as becomes noble
gentlemen."

Matusch shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "I do not know what you
call so, colonel. She was very pretty, and she pleased me. I promised
to set her free to-day, for the ransom agreed on, and I have kept my
word."

As he spoke thus, he burst into a loud laugh, in which his friends
joined with glee.

But Feodor von Brenda did not laugh. An inexplicable, prophetic dread
overpowered him. What if this young girl, described to him with so
much gusto, and who had been so shamefully ill-treated, should prove
to be his Elise, his beloved!

At this thought, anger and distress took possession of him, and he
never loved Elise more ardently and truly than he did at this moment
when he trembled for her. "And was there no one," cried he, with
flashing eyes, "no one knightly and manly enough to take her part?
How! even you, Major von Fritsch, allowed this thing to happen?"

"I was obliged to do so," replied the major. "We have made a law among
ourselves, which we have all sworn to obey. It is established that the
dice shall determine to which of the officers the booty shall belong;
and he who throws the highest number becomes the owner of the person.
He has