ld describe the personal
appearance of the robber-captain.

'He was a tall, well made man,' answered Arwed, 'about Mac Donalbain's
size, in a hunting dress, well armed, and with a black face.'

'But the features of that face?' asked Megret, anxiously. 'Bore they no
resemblance to any you have heretofore seen?'

'Really!' answered Arwed with a smile, 'I did not give myself time to
examine the blackamoor. In leaving him with all convenient haste I did
what you surely will excuse, as you set the first example of a resort
to the spur.'

'You ought to have shot him down!' continued Megret venomously, 'and
then we should have been no longer in the dark with regard to his
identity.'

'At the moment when he had just saved my life?' asked Arwed, with
earnestness. 'Surely, that cannot be your true meaning, colonel!'

'The countess is fainting!' screamed old Knut, spurring his horse to
Christine's side, and catching the pale maiden in his arms.

'Fainting! such a heroine fainting upon so slight an occasion!'
sneeringly remarked Megret. 'There must be some especial and secret
cause for it! Whether that cause rides here upon the highway, or skulks
there in the woods?--that is the question.'

Arwed, who had listened in silent wonder to Megret's observations,
which were wholly unintelligible to him, had in the meantime ridden to
the other side of Christine, and there assisted Knut in supporting the
poor girl in her saddle while they slowly returned to the carriage,
from which the governor had taken the horses in order to send the
coachman to the belligerents, as a reinforcement.

'Thank heaven, it is not necessary!' cried he, glancing at Arwed, and,
extending his hand, he affectionately exclaimed, 'my brave son!'

'We bring you a patient,' said Arwed, lifting Christine from her horse,
with Knut's assistance, and placing her in the carriage by her father's
side.

'Yes, no dissuasion could prevent it,' answered the governor. She would
go. She has had her way, and I am glad the unmanageable girl has for
once been compelled to yield to the weakness of her sex.'

At this moment Christine opened her eyes. Her glance at first fell upon
Arwed with inexpressible tenderness. She then shrunk and trembled as
though her soul was subdued by some horrible fear. Terror and dismay
were depicted in her features, and she hid her face in the bosom of her
astonished father.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The sun of