The hunt was not long. It was swift and dashing, the stag seeming to exhaust himself in one grand burst at the outset; and before the light of the autumn afternoon had waned the yelping of the hounds and the baying of the beagles told that they were almost upon their prey. Erna and Count Stephen were riding desperately, following the trail; but now the countess, who knew the country better than her companion, suddenly struck off along the side of a hill which the hunt had crossed. "Come this way," she called back over her shoulder to her cousin. "We shall intercept them thus at the end of the valley. The stag has doubled." He followed without hesitation, and in brief space they burst through a thicket to find themselves at the head of a little valley carpeted with turf still green and untouched by the frost, and set around with beech trees whose leaves were shining with the slanting beams of the sun, which shot through a break in the hills at their left hand. The whole vale was illumined with the red light, and into it, just as they came out of the wood, dashed a superb stag of ten, the dogs already at his throat; and close upon his track, almost within arm's length, madly rode Albrecht. "I thought the baron had been behind," Count Stephen exclaimed in astonishment. "His woodcraft is too good," Erna returned. "It is idle to match with him; he has outridden us. He must have cut across our track at the last turning. Mother of God!" Her cry was one of mingled astonishment and of dread. Her husband had taken advantage of a stumble which the unhappy stag made, the good dog Gelert being already at the beast's throat, to drive his horse abreast of the deer, to leap from his saddle, and to seize the fleeing animal by its mighty horns. The pair on the hillside opposite drew rein involuntarily, and Erna tried to call out to Albrecht, in the vain hope that he might free himself from a position of so much danger. Before she could speak, however, he had thrown all his force into one powerful effort, and before their eyes had twisted the head of the stag half-way around. The creature dropped with its neck broken, falling among the yelping hounds and at the feet of Rupert, the master of the pack, as suddenly as if an arrow had reached his heart. "By the wounds of God!" cried Count von Rittenberg, pricking his horse forward down the hillside; "what a giant is this!"