"Ah! sergeant, be not so cruel; let the lad go," exclaimed a voice behind Svartberg. "Surely you are not going to turn restive! You kick out a little, but I am certain a mouthful of hay will pacify you. Come, a word with you!" The horse-dealer, for he it was, took the angry Swede by the bandelier, and Svartberg followed him, although with manifest unwillingness, to the further side of the court. Here Martin Thy deliberately unbuttoned his brown doublet and three or four waistcoats, produced, from the inmost recesses of his attire, a small greasy leather book, and thence extracted a scrap of parchment. This he placed before the eyes of the sergeant, following the lines with his finger as Svartberg read, and pausing now and then at particular words, as if they were talismanic characters, intended to allay the soldier's irritation. This, whatever they were, they appeared to do. More calmly, but with a harsh and sullen expression of countenance, and like a man yielding with an ill grace to a power he dares not resist, Svartberg approached Hans Thorsen, who stood in gloomy silence between the two dragoons. "Let the fellow go," he cried, "and to horse! You tell me we shall not come back, Thy. I neither know nor care how you learned it, but remember I make you responsible for both of them. If I do return, I will claim both her and him at your hands, and God help you if they are not forthcoming." He spoke thus whilst tightening his horse's girths, and when he turned his head the horse-dealer had already disappeared. With a muttered oath, Svartberg sprang into the saddle, and, without bestowing another glance upon the young people, galloped out of the court, quite forgetting to bequeath Christina one of those graceful salutations with which it was his wont to bid her adieu.