By now had come dawn, and the birds were beginning their earliest twitter among the trees. Later, squirrels and other small deer began to move about, and to chatter among the boughs and in the fallen leaves. The forest was full of pleasant sights and sounds, and the early morning breeze brought sweet, woodsy smells to his eager nostrils. By and by a red fox stole across an open with a plump hare flung back over his shoulder, and Wulf gave challenge for sheer joy of life and of the morning. Reynard paused long enough to give him a slant glance out of one wise eye, then trotted on. Long pencils of early sunlight began to write cheery greetings on the mossy earth and on the tree-trunks. The witchery of the hour was upon everything, and Wulf felt boundlessly happy as he stepped along. All his thoughts were vague and sweet—of Elise safe at the convent, doubtless still sleeping; of the emperor’s gracious kindness; of Karl’s joy at the message he was bringing. Even the sorry medley of half-knowledge about his own name and state had no power to make him unhappy this morning. Not but that he longed to know the truth. He had never been ashamed to think of himself as Karl’s grandson; but the bare idea of something other than that set his blood tingling, and caused such wild hopes to leap within him that, but for the need to walk warily on this errand so fraught with danger, he could have shouted and sung for joy. He went on steadily, stopping but once, in the middle of the forenoon, to eat a bit of bread and to refill his water-bottle at a clear, pure stream which he crossed. As he drew near to the neighborhood of the glade he was minded to turn aside for a look at the scene of yesterday’s strange adventure, when he thought he heard a low groan beyond him in the forest. He stood to listen, and presently caught the sound again—the moaning of some creature in mortal pain. He crept forward warily. As he came nearer to the moaning he became certain that the hurt creature was a man, and he tried to hear whether there might be others with him. No sound reached him, however, save that faint groaning; so at last he parted the drooping branches of an elm-tree, and saw a piteous sight. There upon the grass, face downward, lay Bell-Hutten, his body rocking softly from side to side as in great agony. His garment of skins was torn from his shoulders, and Wulf noted a torn wound, the blood now dried about it, where the robber’s dagger had struck the day before. As the boy watched, filled with dole, he saw the poor creature reach back a hand toward an empty water-bottle that lay on the grass. His left hand was stretched forward, the fingers clutching vaguely among the grass and leaves. Wulf’s whole nature, as he stood there, ached with horror and pity—horror of the unhappy being upon whom the curse of God and man seemed to have fallen so heavily.