Wolfert gave a loud cry and let fall the lanthorn.  His panic communicated itself to his companions.  The negro leaped out of the hole, the doctor dropped his book and basket and began to pray in German.  All was horror and confusion.  The fire was scattered about, the lanthorn extinguished.  In their hurry-skurry they ran against and confounded one another.  They fancied a legion of hobgoblins let loose upon them, and that they saw by the fitful gleams of the scattered embers, strange figures in red caps gibbering and ramping around them.  The doctor ran one way, Mud Sam another, and Wolfert made for the water side.  As he plunged struggling onwards through bush and brake, he heard the tread of some one in pursuit.

He scrambled frantically forward.  The footsteps gained upon him.  He felt himself grasped by his cloak, when suddenly his pursuer was attacked in turn:  a fierce fight and struggle ensued—­a pistol was discharged that lit up rock and bush for a period, and showed two figures grappling together—­all was then darker than ever.  The contest continued—­the combatants clenched each other, and panted and groaned, and rolled among the rocks.  There was snarling and growling as of a cur, mingled with curses in which Wolfert fancied he could recognize the voice of the buccaneer.  He would fain have fled, but he was on the brink of a precipice and could go no farther.

Again the parties were on their feet; again there was a tugging and struggling, as if strength alone could decide the combat, until one was precipitated from the brow of the cliff and sent headlong into the deep stream that whirled below.  Wolfert heard the plunge, and a kind of strangling bubbling murmur, but the darkness of the night hid every thing from view, and the swiftness of the current swept every thing instantly out of hearing.  One of the combatants was disposed of, but whether friend or foe Wolfert could not tell, nor whether they might not both be foes.  He heard the survivor approach and his terror revived.  He saw, where the profile of the rocks rose against the horizon, a human form advancing.  He could not be mistaken:  it must be the buccaneer.  Whither should he fly! a precipice was on one side; a murderer on the other.  The enemy approached:  he was close at hand.  Wolfert attempted to let himself down the face of the cliff.  His cloak caught in a thorn that grew on the edge.  He was jerked from off his feet and held dangling in the air, half choaked by the string with which his careful wife had fastened the garment round his neck.  Wolfert thought his last moment had arrived; already had he committed his soul to St. Nicholas, when the string broke and he tumbled down the bank, bumping from rock to rock and bush to bush, and leaving the red cloak fluttering like a bloody banner in the air.