His lamp lit up a strange and hideous scene,--on the one hand, the thin, tall, stooping figure of Spiagudry; on the other, a short, stout man, dressed from head to foot in the skins of wild beasts, still stained with dried blood, standing at the feet of Gill Stadt’s corpse, which, with the dead bodies of the young girl and the captain, occupied the background. These three mute witnesses, buried in shadow, were the only ones who could behold, without flying in horror, the two living beings who now entered into conversation. The features of the little man, thrown into vivid relief by the light, were singularly wild and fierce. His beard was red and bushy, and his forehead, hidden under an elkskin cap, seemed bristling with hair of the same color; his mouth was large, his lips thick, his teeth white, sharp, and far apart, his nose hooked like an eagle’s beak; and his grayish-blue eyes, which were extremely quick, flashed a side glance at Spiagudry, in which the ferocity of a tiger was only tempered by the malice of a monkey. This singular character was armed with a broadsword, an unsheathed dagger, and a stone axe, upon whose long handle he leaned; his hands were covered with thick gloves made of a blue fox-skin. “That old ghost keeps me waiting a long time,” said he, as if talking to himself; and he uttered a sound like the roar of a wild beast. Spiagudry would certainly have turned pale with fright, had he been capable of turning paler than he was. “Do you know,” continued the little man, addressing him directly, “that I come from Urchtal Sands? Do you [Illustration: _Hans of Iceland finding the Body of his Son, Gill Stadt._ Photo-Etching.--From drawing by François Flameng.] want to change your straw bed for one of these beds of stone, that you keep me waiting thus?” Spiagudry trembled more than ever; the two solitary teeth left to him chattered in his head. “Excuse me, master,” said he, bending his long back to a level with the little man; “I was asleep.” “Do you want me to make you acquainted with a far sounder sleep than that?” Spiagudry’s face assumed an expression of terror, the only thing which could be more comic than his expression of mirth. “Well! what is it?” continued the little man. “What ails you? Is my presence disagreeable to you?” “Oh, my lord and master!” replied the old keeper, “there can surely be no greater happiness for me than to see your Excellence.” And the effort which he made to twist his frightened face into a smile would have unbent the brow of any but the dead. “Tailless old fox, my Excellence commands you to hand over the clothes of Gill Stadt.” As he uttered this name, the little man’s fierce, mocking features grew dark and sad. “Oh, master, pardon me, but I no longer have them!” said Spiagudry. “Your Grace knows that we are obliged to turn over the property of all workers in the mine to the Crown, the king inheriting by right of their being his wards.”