The ripe corn waved in the unshorn fields on each side of us; but with the moon a thick mist rose as usual from the meadows and pasture-lands, which gleamed like silver lakes through a veil of gauze. We passed a few wayside cottages, roofed with red tiles or bright yellow thatch; their owners had fled, and no places were occupied but the wooden dovecot--a perforated box, or old beer-barrel, elevated on the summit of a painted post, or on some scathed and leafless tree. Shortly after the rising of the moon, a man rode past us. He was dressed like a peasant of Holstein, in wide breeches having rows of metal buttons at the sides; a low broad hat and canvass doublet, belted with a rough baldric; coarse grey stockings, red garters, and wooden-soled shoes. He rode a strong and active horse. "Softly, sir," said I, "a word with you." He still rode on without attending to me. "Harkee, fellow--dost hear?" I added, as Gillian M'Bane blew the match of his musket. Upon this the peasant turned back his horse, and touched his hat. "Are you deaf, fellow?" "A little, sir," said he, pointing to a bandage which encircled his head; "a Croatian sabre has laid bare my head from ear to eye." "Are you a Dane?" "I am of Schönburg." "Have you travelled far to-day?" "About three pipes," said he, taking his pipe from his mouth. "Where did you come from last?" I asked, impatiently. "Oldenburg, Mein Herr." "Have you seen any thing of the Imperialists?" "Heaven be blessed, no! They would have made but a mouthful of me. I am a poor, inoffensive man--a dealer in cattle, Mein Herr--I am going to Heilinghafen." "You will find customers enough and to spare, my Schönburger; for Duke Bernard is there in quarters with eight thousand hungry men." The trader appeared somewhat startled by this intelligence, but politely begged me to be assured that the Imperialists had not yet passed the Stoer; and then asked if I required his services in any way--on which I thanked him, and we parted. He galloped off. His last observations had been less brief than others; they caused something of a familiar voice and manner to flash upon my memory. I paused and looked back; he had turned aside from the Heilinghafen road, and was riding headlong through the ripe corn-field in an opposite direction, but far beyond our reach. "Oh no!--it cannot be--and yet, his voice! Fool that I am--was I blind?" I exclaimed. "What--what is it?" asked Lieutenant Lumsdaine and Phaclrig Mhor together. "But for his white eyebrows and beardless face, I could have sworn that was Bandolo." "Oh--impossible!" said Lumsdaine; "Bandolo wandering here, in that way; besides, like a true German or Dutchman, he measured the distance by the smoking of his pipe. Cunning as he is, I do not think a Spaniard would ever have thought of that. It was so natural." "True--but this man is a spy by profession, and practises all these little things."