"That's a lie!" cried Clement the Clerk fiercely. "I speak the truth," persisted the magistrate, seizing Clement by the hand, and dexterously insinuating two silver marias into his clenched fist. "Well, it is not impossible," said the Patrol-officer, somewhat mollified. Last of all came the question-- "Has any among you seen foreign beasts of prey, or other strange animals, straying about in these regions?" "Of a truth, sir, we have seen lots of them." "And what sort of beasts were they?" asked Clement, with joyful curiosity. "Well, dog-headed Tartars!" "You fool, I don't mean that sort of beast. I want to know whether any one, in strolling through these woods, has come upon a four-footed beast of prey, a creature with a spotted skin? You know very well you have left no hole or corner unexplored, for even now you are hunting after the hidden treasures of Decebalus." The magistrate shook his head incredulously, glanced at the crowd, and said, with a shrug of his shoulders-- "We have seen no such wondrous beast; but haply Sange Moarte has seen it, for he in his mad moods roams incessantly through woods and hollows." "And where then is this Sange Moarte? You must call him hither." "Alas! sir, he is difficult to catch; he seldom comes to the village. But perhaps his mother is here." "Here she is! here she is!" cried several peasants at once, pushing forward an old woman with sunken cheeks, whose head was wrapped round in a white cloth. "What mad name is this you have given to your son?" cried the Patrol-officer; "whoever heard of calling a man 'Dead blood'!" "'Twas not I, sir, who gave him this name," said the old Wallachian woman with a broken voice. "The villagers call him so because he is never seen to laugh or speak to any one, or answer when he is spoken to. He did not even weep for his father when he died; nor has he ever visited the girls in the spinning-rooms, but wanders about incessantly in the woods." "All right, all right, old lady; but that has nothing to do with me."