"Come down, thou vile Merodeur!" added the young man, as they each cocked a pistol. My heart beat like lightning. It was evident that they spoke at random; but both levelled their pistols, and fired right among the foliage. The balls whitened the branches as they crashed through the leaves, without touching me; I sat still as death, waiting for the next act of this desperate drama, and feeling a violent inclination to let four bullets fly at them in return, from the pistol-barrels concealed in the lock of my sporran. There was a pause as they reloaded, during which the young man Gustaf wept bitterly. Some frightful crime was undoubtedly imputed to me! The poor girl whom I had left a few hours before, had been most barbarously murdered, and these men, her lover and her master, had come in pursuit of me; but I felt assured, that to come forth and attempt any explanation with men so excited, and so prejudiced against me, would be recklessly throwing away my life. Her hands held the fragments of a man's ruff, and mine was torn--but by the hands of Tilly's soldiers. Honour then required that, at all risks, I should no longer lurk within earshot of those who imputed to me a crime so terrible, and I was just about to descend when the lover exclaimed furiously-- "I can never return the way we have come! On--yet on--for my heart is on fire!" and, spurring their horses, they galloped away at headlong speed, and were quickly out of sight. The next moment I dropped from the tree, and paused with irresolution. My first impulse was to return to the village, though ten miles distant, and confront my accusers; my second reflection urged me to continue my flight, as the chances of mercy from the exasperated peasantry on one hand, and the Imperialists on the other, were very slender. Striking across the fields, I made a detour to the right for the purpose of avoiding the high-road; about that time the waning moon became enveloped in clouds, and I found myself on the borders of a wood. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE HUNTER'S COT. I had lost the path, and knew not which way to turn; yet the necessity for action made me walk hastily forward in the line which seemed parallel with the road I wished to pursue; but on becoming confused among the trees and thickets of large bushes, I lost the way irretrievably, and stumbled on through the wood, deprived of the waning moonlight, and even that of the stars, while having, moreover, to fear the wild animals, and other denizens of a more dangerous character, who usually haunt the German forests. After pursuing a narrow path for nearly half an hour, I came to an open space where the trees had been cleared away, and in the centre of which stood a hut of the most rustic description.