"Who are you?" shouted the huntsman, in a stern, commanding voice. "Rievers have landed hereabouts, and I have a right to make the demand: I am the king's captain at Tornborg." "We have sought you in vain, Sir Benedict Rimaardson," replied Drost Peter, taking off his red cap, and at the same time handing him the king's authority. "Who we are, this will inform you, if you have not already recognised us." "Drost Hessel! Sir Thorstenson!" exclaimed the knight, with surprise, and springing from his horse: "who would have expected you in this guise?" He extended a friendly hand to them, and cast a hasty glance over the document, while Drost Peter pointed it out, and laid his finger on his lips. Although the huntsman had, apparently, some trouble in reading it, he quickly understood its meaning. "So, so! teeth before the tongue!" said he, in a tone of surprise, and handing back the parchment to Drost Peter. "I have something better to do, then, than to hunt after these horse-stealers. But still it was an accursed piece of impudence in them," continued he, enraged. "Did you not see a gang of long-bearded fellows, looking like shipwrecked seamen? A little while since they carried off all our horses, almost to the one I luckily sit upon. They did it in a twinkling, as my huntsmen were taking their morning's meal down by the moss." "Our horses, also, have disappeared," said Sir Thorstenson. "Here there is no time to be lost. But, first, procure us three horses." "Are you more than two, gentlemen?" "My squire is on the outlook, down by the road," replied Drost Peter: "see, here he comes." Squire Skirmen bounded forward like a hart. "They are coming!" he exclaimed: "there are four on horseback. I know the duke's red mantle, and the little Norse gentleman's burly beard." "The algrev!" cried Thorstenson: "death and destruction! let us after him!" "That illustrious individual is not to be stopped here, if I understand the pothooks rightly," said the huntsman; "but we must be certain whether it is him. How fall you upon the algrev? Follow me, gentlemen: I know the wood. They shall pass close by us without seeing us." While Skirmen held the huntsman's horse, he led the nimble Drost Peter and Sir Thorstenson into a thicket of white thorns and young beeches, close by the roadside. By his advice, they laid themselves on the ground, having in sight, before them, a portion of the road from Korsöer. They had not waited long in this position, before they heard the trampling of horses close at hand. Drost Peter bent the boughs aside, and Sir Thorstenson made a hasty movement. "Still! keep still, my good sirs!" said the hunter: "game of this sort must not be frightened. Here we have them. Bight: it is the duke and his drost. The pompous little gentleman, with the bullock head, I do not know; and yet--" "The algrev! Mindre-Alf!" interrupted Thorstenson, in a low voice, as he was on the point of starting up.