an and Botzen, and the road to Trent, were strictly
guarded. Weisspriess hurried them forward with particular orders that
they should take into custody the whole of the party, excepting the
lady; her, if arrested with the others, they were to release: her maid
and the three men were to be marched back to Cles, and there kept fast.

The game was now his own: he surveyed its pretty intricate moves as on
a map. The character of Herr Johannes he entirely discarded: an Imperial
officer in his uniform, sword in belt, could scarcely continue that
meek performance. 'But I may admire music, and entreat her to give me
a particular note, if she has it,' said the captain, hanging in
contemplation over a coming scene, like a quivering hawk about to close
its wings. His heart beat thick; which astonished him: hitherto it had
never made that sort of movement.

From Cles he despatched a letter to the fair chatelaine at Meran,
telling her that by dainty and skilful management of the paces, he was
bringing on the intractable heroine of the Fifteenth, and was to
be expected in about two or three days. The letter was entrusted to
Wilhelm, who took the borrowed horse back to Trent.

Weisspriess was on the mule-track a mile above the last village
ascending to the pass, when he observed the party of prisoners, and
climbed up into covert. As they went by he discerned but one person in
female garments; the necessity to crouch for obscurity prevented him
from examining them separately. He counted three men and beheld one of
them between gendarmes. 'That must be my villain,' he said.

It was clear that Vittoria had chosen to go forward alone. The captain
praised her spirit, and now pushed ahead with hunter's strides. He
passed an inn, closed and tenantless: behind him lay the Val di Non;
in front the darker valley of the Adige: where was the prey? A storm of
rage set in upon him with the fear that he had been befooled. He lit a
cigar, to assume ease of aspect, whatever the circumstances might
be, and gain some inward serenity by the outer reflection of it--not
altogether without success. 'My lady must be a doughty walker,' he
thought; 'at this rate she will be in the Ultenthal before sunset.' A
wooded height ranged on his left as he descended rapidly. Coming to a
roll of grass dotted with grey rock, he climbed it, and mounting one
of the boulders, beheld at a distance of half-a-dozen stone-throws
downward, the figure of a woman holding her han