But just as I had got my body half across the branch,
and was about to drag my legs up after it, one of the horsemen trotted
briskly across the green toward me. I shut my eyes tight amid the
thick foliage, and did not stir. "Who is there?" a voice called
directly under me. "Nobody!" I yelled in terror at being detected,
although I could not but laugh to myself at the thought of how the
rogues would look when they should turn my empty pockets inside out.
"Aha!" said the robber, "whose are these legs, then, hanging down
here?" There was no help for it. "They are," I replied, "only a couple
of legs of a poor, lost musician." And I hastily let myself drop, for
I was ashamed to hang there any longer like a broken fork.
The rider's horse shied when I dropped so suddenly from the tree. He
patted the animal's neck, and said, laughing, "Well, we too are lost,
so we are comrades; perhaps you can help us to find the road to B. You
shall be no loser by it." I assured him that I knew nothing about the
road to B., and said that I would ask in the inn, or would conduct
them to the village. But the man would not listen to reason; he
drew from his girdle a pistol, the barrel of which glittered in the
moonlight. "My dear fellow," he said in a very friendly tone, as he
wiped off the glittering barrel and then ran his eye along it--"my
dear fellow, you will have the kindness to go yourself before us to
B.
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