The Interlopers

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of theKarpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, asthough he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range ofhis vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence hekept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman's calendaras lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled thedark forest in quest of a human enemy.

　　The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked withgame; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirtwas not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded,but it was the most jealously guarded of all its owner's territorialpossessions. A famous law suit, in the days of his grandfather, hadwrested it from the illegal possession of a neighbouring family of pettylandowners; the dispossessed party had never acquiesced in the judgmentof the Courts, and a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandalshad embittered the relationships between the families for threegenerations. The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one sinceUlrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the worldwhom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor ofthe quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputedborder-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or beencompromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in theway; as boys they had thirsted for one another's blood, as men eachprayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this wind-scourgedwinter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the darkforest, not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out forthe prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across theland boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollowsduring a storm-wind, were running like driven things to-night, and therewas movement and unrest among the creatures that were wont to sleepthrough the dark hours. Assuredly there was a disturbing element in theforest, and Ulrich could guess the quarter from whence it came.

　　He strayed away by himself from the watchers whom he had placed in ambushon the crest of the hill, and wandered far down the steep slopes amid thewild tangle of undergrowth, peering through the tree trunks and listeningthrough the whistling and skirling of the wind and the restless beatingof the branches for sight and sound of the marauders. If only on thiswild 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 inhis thoughts. And as he stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he cameface 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 murderuppermost in his mind. The chance had come to give full play to thepassions of a lifetime. But a man who has been brought up under the codeof a restraining civilisation cannot easily nerve himself to shoot downhis neighbour in cold blood and without word spoken, except for anoffence against his hearth and honour. And before the moment ofhesitation had given way to action a deed of Nature's own violenceoverwhelmed them both. A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered bya splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a massof falling beech tree had thundered down on them. Ulrich von Gradwitzfound himself stretched on the ground, one arm numb beneath him and theother held almost as helplessly in a tight tangle of forked branches,while both legs were pinned beneath the fallen mass. His heavy shooting-boots had saved his feet from being crushed to pieces, but if hisfractures were not as serious as they might have been, at least it wasevident that he could not move from his present position till some onecame to release him. The descending twig had slashed the skin of hisface, and he had to wink away some drops of blood from his eyelashesbefore he could take in a general view of the disaster. At his side, sonear that under ordinary circumstances he could almost have touched him,lay Georg Znaeym, alive and struggling, but obviously as helplesslypinioned down as himself. All round them lay a thick-strewn wreckage ofsplintered branches and broken twigs.

　　Relief at being alive and exasperation at his captive plight brought astrange medley of pious thank-offerings and sharp curses to Ulrich'slips. Georg, who was early blinded with the blood which trickled acrosshis eyes, stopped his struggling for a moment to listen, and then gave ashort, snarling laugh.

　　"So you're not killed, as you ought to be, but you're caught, anyway," hecried; "caught fast. Ho, what a jest, Ulrich von Gradwitz snared in hisstolen forest. There's real justice for you!"

　　And he laughed again, mockingly and savagely.

　　"I'm caught in my own forest-land," retorted Ulrich. "When my men cometo release us you will wish, perhaps, that you were in a better plightthan caught poaching on a neighbour's land, shame on you."

　　Georg was silent for a moment; then he answered quietly:

　　"Are you sure that your men will find much to release? I have men, too,in the forest to-night, close behind me, and _they_ will be here firstand do the releasing. When they drag me out from under these damnedbranches it won't need much clumsiness on their part to roll this mass oftrunk right over on the top of you. Your men will find you dead under afallen beech tree. For form's sake I shall send my condolences to yourfamily."

　　"It is a useful hint," said Ulrich fiercely. "My men had orders tofollow in ten minutes time, seven of which must have gone by already, andwhen they get me out--I will remember the hint. Only as you will havemet your death poaching on my lands I don't think I can decently send anymessage of condolence to your family."

　　"Good," snarled Georg, "good. We fight this quarrel out to the death,you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come betweenus. Death and damnation to you, Ulrich von Gradwitz."

　　"The same to you, Georg Znaeym, forest-thief, game-snatcher."

　　Both men spoke with the bitterness of possible defeat before them, foreach knew that it might be long before his men would seek him out or findhim; it was a bare matter of chance which party would arrive first on thescene.

　　Both had now given up the useless struggle to free themselves from themass of wood that held them down; Ulrich limited his endeavours to aneffort to bring his one partially free arm near enough to his outer coat-pocket to draw out his wine-flask. Even when he had accomplished thatoperation it was long before he could manage the unscrewing of thestopper or get any of the liquid down his throat. But what a Heaven-sentdraught it seemed! It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen asyet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have beenthe case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warmingand reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something likea throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of painand weariness from crossing his lips.

　　"Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?" asked Ulrichsuddenly; "there is good wine in it, and one may as well be ascomfortable as one can. Let us drink, even if to-night one of us dies."

　　"No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round myeyes," said Georg, "and in any case I don't drink wine with an enemy."

　　Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the wearyscreeching of the wind. An idea was slowly forming and growing in hisbrain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across atthe man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion. In thepain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatredseemed to be dying down.

　　"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first.It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. If my menare the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though youwere my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over thisstupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in abreath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking I've come to think we'vebeen rather fools; there are better things in life than getting thebetter of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury theold quarrel I--I will ask you to be my friend."

　　Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he hadfainted with the pain of his injuries. Then he spoke slowly and injerks.

　　"How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into themarket-square together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a vonGradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace therewould be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And ifwe choose to make peace among our people there is none other tointerfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would come and keep theSylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some highday at your castle . . . I would never fire a shot on your land, savewhen you invited me as a guest; and you should come and shoot with medown in the marshes where the wildfowl are. In all the countryside thereare none that could hinder if we willed to make peace. I never thoughtto have wanted to do other than hate you all my life, but I think I havechanged my mind about things too, this last half-hour. And you offeredme your wine-flask . . . Ulrich von Gradwitz, I will be your friend."

　　For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds thewonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about. Inthe cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful gusts throughthe naked branches and whistling round the tree-trunks, they lay andwaited for the help that would now bring release and succour to bothparties. And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be thefirst to arrive, so that he might be the first to show honourableattention to the enemy that had become a friend.

　　Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke silence.

　　"Let's shout for help," he said; he said; "in this lull our voices maycarry a little way."

　　"They won't carry far through the trees and undergrowth," said Georg,"but we can try. Together, then."

　　The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call.

　　"Together again," said Ulrich a few minutes later, after listening invain for an answering halloo.

　　"I heard nothing but the pestilential wind," said Georg hoarsely.

　　There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a joyfulcry.

　　"I can see figures coming through the wood. They are following in theway I came down the hillside."

　　Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could muster.

　　"They hear us! They've stopped. Now they see us. They're running downthe hill towards us," cried Ulrich.

　　"How many of them are there?" asked Georg.

　　"I can't see distinctly," said Ulrich; "nine or ten,"

　　"Then they are yours," said Georg; "I had only seven out with me."

　　"They are making all the speed they can, brave lads," said Ulrich gladly.

　　"Are they your men?" asked Georg. "Are they your men?" he repeatedimpatiently as Ulrich did not answer.

　　"No," said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a manunstrung with hideous fear.

　　"Who are they?" asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what theother would gladly not have seen.

　　"Wolves."