Nor did the next step in the pursuit delay them long. There were, it is true, three paths through the forest, which closed in the hamlet on every side except that by which the party had approached it. Carna’s pet dog at once decided for the searchers which of the three they should follow. He discovered the scent very quickly, ran at the top of his speed along the path thus distinguished from the others for about a hundred yards, and then, coming back, implored the party, so to speak, by his gestures, that they should come with him. It was evident that the path had been traversed by a party of considerable size, whose tracks, the marks of a horse’s hoofs among them, were still fresh in the ground, soft as it was with the winter rains. The dog was evidently satisfied that they were right, for he ran quietly on, now and then giving a very soft little whine. It wanted still an hour or so of sunset when the party emerged out of the forest upon the shore. Here it might have seemed at first all trace was lost. The tide had flowed and ebbed twice since the girl had been there, and had swept away all marks of footsteps. The dog too was no longer a guide. The poor little creature’s distress indeed was pitiful, as he ran to and fro upon the shore with a plaintive whine. The Count asked his companions for their opinions. “Have they taken to the wood again, do you think? or have they crossed the water? they may have gone a mile or more along the shore and then entered the forest. In that case it seems hopeless to recover the track.” “It is my opinion,” said the peddler, “that they have crossed to the mainland; but it is only an opinion, and I have little or nothing to urge for it.” Other members of the party had different views; and, on the whole, opinion was adverse to the peddler’s view; and the Count was about to order a search in the direction of the wood further along the shore, when the attention of the party was arrested by a shout from the Saxon. The discussion had been carried on in a language which he had still some difficulty in understanding, and he had been pacing backwards and forwards along the shore, seemingly lost in thought, but really watching everything with that keen attention to all outward objects which is one of the characteristics of uncivilized man. It was thus that something caught his eye. He plunged his hand into one of the little rock-pools upon the shore, and drew it out. It was a small gold trinket, which the girl had dropped in the forlorn hope that it might be found. Its weight, for it was an almost solid piece of metal, had kept it in the place where it fell, and as the night and day had been uniformly calm, there had been no sufficient movement of the water to disturb it. With a cry of delight the Saxon held it up, and the Count recognized it at once.