'I could have wished a more honorable death,' he murmured, and at that moment a tall man in a green hunting dress sprang from a neighboring thicket. A red plume waved from his hat, and his face was black as a Moor's. He spoke some angry words in an unintelligible jargon to the robbers, upon which they immediately abandoned Arwed and disappeared in the bushes, and the Moor motioned to Arwed to depart. 'Thanks, captain!' said Arwed, rejoiced at this unexpected rescue, and pushing forward, he soon found himself upon the highway. There he met Megret, with both of their servants, coming to seek for him. 'Here you are, then!' said Megret out of breath, 'and, as I hope, not wounded. I should never have forgiven myself if you had been injured in rescuing me!' 'God be praised that you are alive, Arwed!' cried the beauteous Christine, flying to meet him upon her favorite dun courser, and her blue eyes flashed upon him so affectionately as to cause a fluttering at his heart. 'You see, major,' said Megret flatteringly, 'how instantaneously all were hastening to your assistance.' 'Your promptness is worthy of all thanks, colonel,' answered Arwed; 'but your help would have been of little service to me had I not been so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of Black Naddock. His command caused the fiends by whom I was hard pressed, to vanish. Had he not appeared most opportunely, you would in all probability have found only my dead body.' 'That would indeed have been purchasing the safety of a man who could leave his preserver in the danger which had been incurred for his sake, at too dear a rate,' remarked Christine, with bitterness. Megret did not notice the sarcasm, as at that moment he was begging of Arwed, with singular eagerness, that he would describe the personal appearance of the robber-captain. 'He was a tall, well made man,' answered Arwed, 'about Mac Donalbain's size, in a hunting dress, well armed, and with a black face.' 'But the features of that face?' asked Megret, anxiously. 'Bore they no resemblance to any you have heretofore seen?' 'Really!' answered Arwed with a smile, 'I did not give myself time to examine the blackamoor. In leaving him with all convenient haste I did what you surely will excuse, as you set the first example of a resort to the spur.' 'You ought to have shot him down!' continued Megret venomously, 'and then we should have been no longer in the dark with regard to his identity.' 'At the moment when he had just saved my life?' asked Arwed, with earnestness. 'Surely, that cannot be your true meaning, colonel!' 'The countess is fainting!' screamed old Knut, spurring his horse to Christine's side, and catching the pale maiden in his arms. 'Fainting! such a heroine fainting upon so slight an occasion!' sneeringly remarked Megret. 'There must be some especial and secret cause for it! Whether that cause rides here upon the highway, or skulks there in the woods?--that is the question.'