Assuredly there was a disturbing element in the
forest, and Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came.
He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambush
on the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep slopes amid the
wild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listening
through the whistling and skirling of the wind and the restless beating
of the branches for sight and sound of the marauders. If only on this
wild night, in this dark, lone spot, he might come across Georg Znaeym,
man to man, with none to witness--that was the wish that was uppermost in
his thoughts. And as he stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he came
face to face with the man he sought.
The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment.
Each had a rifle in his hand, each had hate in his heart and murder
uppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to the
passions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the code
of a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down
his neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for an
offence against his hearth and honour.
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