Anon, all became still--deathly still--in the depths of the dark well; the rope ceased to vibrate, and the bubbles came no more. "Let us leave him here for a few minutes, and now for the Captain and his dispatch! By the time that we return, the Corporal will be as stiff as if he stood for sale in the frozen market on the fête of St. Nicholas!" said the gipsy, with one of his diabolical grins; while the Stepniak, with a smile of satisfaction that showed all his huge yellow teeth, smoothed down to his eyebrows the thick coarse black hair that grew from the apex of his conical caput. They now re-entered the cottage, and again lighted the torch in its iron loutchin. All remained just as they had left it; the quass pitcher, the wooden bowls, the two cups, and the empty wine bottle were on the table, and the platters, with the débris of their rustic supper; but the superstitious gipsy felt a species of shudder come over him, for when the torch flared up in the night wind and cast strange shadows on the dingy and discoloured walls of the log-hut, it seemed to his diseased imagination, for a moment, as if the outline of the drowned Corporal still occupied the stool on which he had been seated. "Come," said he huskily, "the dispatch!--and then for the other!" They listened intently, and placed the ladder against the trap-door. All was still--not even the breathing of Balgonie was heard. Ascending first, with a knife in his teeth, in case of unexpected resistance, the gipsy knocked thrice on the trap without receiving any response. He then withdrew the wooden bolt, pushed it up, and introducing his head and shoulders, held aloft the pine torch, and turned towards the bed of skins. It was unoccupied; and in a moment he saw that the bare and desolate chamber was without a tenant! "Malediction!" he shouted; "he has escaped us--but how? Search--search! He cannot be far off, after the dose I have given him; search--and we must use our hatchets now!" CHAPTER XI. OLGA, THE GIPSY. Balgonie had scarcely thrown himself at length on the soft, but not very odorous, pile of skins which formed his couch, when a face appeared at the little window, which was pulled open, and a voice called to him in a low and earnest whisper: "Hospodeen--Carl Ivanovitch! Hospodeen, attend to me; but oh, be silent, as you value your life!" He started up, softly approached the window, and saw, by the dim starlight, a fair female face with very dark eyes, white and regular teeth, and long, glittering ear-rings. "I have seen this face before," thought he; "but when, and where?" Balgonie, in truth, was too much of a lover to have more than one female face ever before his eyes--that of Natalie Mierowna. "I am Olga, the gipsy," said the girl, humbly. "Olga! Olga! whom I saw at the house of Count Mierowitz this evening?"