"It will afford me the utmost gratification if I can do so," he rejoined, filling up his cup, and letting out another button of his doublet to make room for its contents. "On what matter can I give you information?" "Who is that very attractive damoiselle that occupies one of the apartments below?" "Damoiselle!" he reiterated, while the paleness of anger overspread his face in the twilight; "you are mistaken, young gentleman; there is--assuredly there is no young lady there." "Come, Herr, rally your thoughts," I continued, with a loud laugh, as the liquor mounted to my brain; "you will be sure to remember her--fair and handsome, with the most beautiful dark hair, and the longest eyelashes in the world. I warrant me, there is not a prettier _jung-fer_ in all Holstein!" "You mean _Jung-fraü_," replied Otto, with another of his quiet but obnoxious smiles, and this time the fellow was laughing in earnest, for I had made--what I afterwards learned to be--a mistake; "but I beg to assure you, that no young damoiselle could be hereabout without my knowledge." "I am aware of that," I continued in my tone of banter; "but, pray, make no more assertions; I have no wish to pry into your little secrets, Herr--not I, though doubtless this damoiselle is the prettiest little woman in Glückstadt." "Were this St. John's night, when our fairies and white women are all abroad, I would swear thou hadst seen a Trold; for there is no woman here but the old crone my housekeeper, to whose smiles thou art welcome. There is none, I vow to you, by the soul of Holger Danske!" Confounded by the earnestness of the man, struck by a sudden and ferocious gleam that passed over his glassy eyes, and supposing there was in the affair some strange mystery with which I had no right to meddle, I dropped the subject, and assisted to fill and refill the tankard; nor did we separate until the midnight moon was shining on the broad waters of the Elbe, and the strong round tower of Glückstadt. Then Otto Koskilde retired, and the moment he was gone we rolled our tartan plaids around us, and lay down on the hard boarded floor, with our targets and claymores for pillows. CHAPTER VIII. OUR CANTONMENT. The next day's sun rose bright and radiant; the birds sang in the green poplars; the storks screamed on the red gable-tops; the great frogs were croaking hoarsely among the bronze-like slime which was generated on the bosom of the stagnant canals, and the business of life commenced in Glückstadt. "I'll find her out;" I muttered, as we sat down to breakfast on the remains of our supper, together with a can of Dantzig beer, a ham and basket of eggs, which our invaluable Phadrig had procured from some confiding sutler in the Platz; "I will find her out, if she is between the rooftree and the ground-stone!" "Who?" asked Ian, overhearing my Gaëlic. "A fair young lady, whom I discovered yesterday."