Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1878 — THE GHOST ROBBER. [ARTICLE]

THE GHOST ROBBER.

On & fine evening in the spring of 1830, a stranger, mounted on a noblelooking horse, passed slowly over the snow-white limestone road leading through the Black Forest. Just as the sun was going to rest for the day, when the gloomy shadows were beginning to stalk, he drew rein, as he stud: _ ■ “ This must be near the spot, surely. Til stop here, anyhow. for a while, and see what I can learn.” He thereupon dismounted and entered the parlor of the inn, where he sat down beside a small table. “ How can I serve you, meinheer?” said the landlord. “ See to my horse outside,” replied the guest, carelessly, but at the same time eyeing the landlord from head to foot; “ and let me have some wine— Rhine will do.” 'The landlord was turning to withdraw from the stranger’s presence, when he stopped and said: —“Which way, meinheer, do you travel?” “To Nanstadt,” replied the guest. “You will rest here to-night, I suppose?” continued the landlord. “ I will stay here for two or three hours, but I must then be off, so as to reach my destination there in the morning. lam going to purchase lumber for the market.” “ And you have considerable money with you, no doubt?” asked the landlord, innocently. , “Yes, considerable," replied the guest, sipping at his wine, disinterestedly. “Then, If you’ll take my advice,” said the landlord, “ you’ll stay here till morning.” “Why?” replied the stranger, looking up curiously. “Because,” whispered the landlord, looking around as if he were disclosing a great secret, and was afraid of being heard by somebody else, “ every man that passed over the road between this and Nanstadt at midnight, for the last ten years, has been robbed or murdered under very singular circumstances.” ..“What were the circumstances?” asked the stranger, putting down his glass empty ana preparing to fill it again. “ Why, you see,” the landlord went on, while he approached his guest’s table and took a seat, “ I have spoken with several who have been robbed; all I could learn from them is that they remember meeting in the lonesome part of the wood something that looked white and ghastly, and that frightened their horses so that they either ran away or threw their riders; they felt a choking sensation and a sort of smothering, and finally died, as they thought, but awoke In an * hour or so to find themselves lying by the roadside, robbed of everything.” “ Indeed?” ejaculated the stranger, looking abstractedly at the rafters in the ceiling, as though he was more intent upon counting them than he was interested in the landlord's story. The innkeeper looked at him in astonishment. Such perfect coolness he had not witnessed for a long time. “You will remain, then?” suggested* the landlord, after waiting some time for his guest to speak. “~“I?’° cried the stranger, starting from his fit of abstraction, as though addressed. “ Oh, most certainly not; I’m going straight ahead, ghost or no ghost, to-night. Half an hour later, the stranger and a guide, called Wilhelm, were 'out on the road, going at a pretty round pace toward Nanstadt. During a flash of lightning the stranger observed that his guide looked very uneasy about something, and was slackening his horse’s pace as though he intended to drop behind. "Lead on,” cried the stranger, “don’t be afraid.” “I’m afraid I cannot,” replied the person addressed, continuing to hold nis horse in until he was now at least a length behind his companion. “My horse is cowardly and unmanageable in a thunderstorm. If you win go on though, I think I can make him follow close enough to point out the road.” The stranger pulled up Instantly. A strange light gleamed in his eyes, wjiUe his hand sought bls breast pocket,

from which he drew something. The guide saw the movement and stopped also. “ Quidea should lead, not follow,” said the stranger, quietly, but with a firmness widen seemed to be exceedingly unpleasant to the person addressed. “But,” faltered the guide, “my horse won’t go.” “Won’t he?” queried the stranger, with mock simplicity. The guide heard a sharp click, and saw something gleam in his companion's right hand. He seemed to understand perfectly, for he immediately drove his spurs into his horse’s flanks, and shot ahead of his companion without another word. He no sooner reached his old position, however, than the stranger saw him give a sharp turn to the right and then disappear, as though he had vanished through the foliage of the trees that skirted the road. He heard the clatter of his horse as he galloped off. Without waiting another instant, he touched his horse lightly with the reins, gave him a prick with the rowels, and off the noble animal started like the wind in the wake of the Hying guide. The stranger's horse being much superior to the other’s, the race was a short one, and terminated by the guide being thrown nearly from his saddle by a heavy hand which was laid upon his bridle, stopping him. He turned in his seat, beheld the stranger’s face, dark and frowning, and trembled violently as he felt the smooth, cold barrel of a pistol pressed against his cheek. “This cursed beast almost ran away with me,” cried the guide, composing himself as well as he could under the circumstances. “ Yes, I know,” said his companion dryly, “ but mark my word, young man, if your horse plays such tricksagain he'll be the means of seriously injuring his master’s health.” They both turned and cantered back to the road. When they reached it again, and turned the heads of their animals in the right direction, the stranger said to bis guide, in a tone which must have convinced his hearer as to his earnestness: “ Now, friend Wilhelm, I hope we understand each other for the rest of the journey. You are to continue on ahead of me, in the right road, without swerving either to the right or left. If I see you do anything suspicious, I will drive a brace of bullets through you without a word of notice. Now push on. ” The guide had started as directed; but it was evident from his mutterings that he was alarmed at something beside the action of his follower. In the meantime the thunder had increased its violence, and the flashes of lightning had become more frequent and more blinding. For awhile the two horsemen rode on in silence, the guide keeping up his directions to the letter, while his follower watched his every movement as a cat would watch a mouse. Suddenly the guide stopped and looked behind him. Again he heard the click of the stranger’s pistol and saw his uplifted ~ “Have mercy, meinheer,” he groaned, “ I dare not go on.” “ I give you three seconds to go on,” replied the stranger, sternly. “One!” “In Heaven’s name, spare,” implored the guide, almost overpowered with fear, “look before me in the road and yon will not blame me.” The stranger looked. At first he saw something white standing motionless in the center of the road, but presently a flash of lightning lit up the scene, and he saw that the white figure was indeed ghastly and frightful enough looking to chill the blood in the veins of even the bravest man. If his blood chilled for a moment, therefore, it was not through any fear that he felt for his ghostly interpreter, for the next instant he set his teeth hard, while he whispered between them, just loud enough to be heard by his terror-stricken guide: “ Be it man or devil!—ride it down— I’ll follow. Two!” With a cry of despair upon his lips, the guide urged his horse forward at the top of his sp'eed, quickly followed by the stranger, who held his pistol ready in his hand. I nano th erinstant the guide would have swept past the dreadful spot, but at that instant the report of a pistol rang through the dark forest, and the stranger heard a horse gallop off through the woods, riderless. Finding himself alone, the stranger raised hie pistol, took deliberate aim at the ghostly murderer and pressed his finger upon the trigger. The apparition approached quickly, but in no hostile attitude. The stranger stayed his hand. At length the ghost addressed him in a voice that was anything but sepulchral: “Here, Wilhelm, ye move out of your perch this minute and give me a helping hand. I’ve hit the game while on the wing, haven’t IP” The stranger was nonplussed for a moment, but recovering himself, he grumbled something unintelligible and leaped to the ground. One word to his horse and the crave animal stood perfectly still. Sy the snow-white trappings on the would-be ghost, he was next enabled to grope his way in the dark toward that individual, whom he found bending over a black mass, about the size of a man, on the road. As the tiger pounces upon his prey, the stranger leaped upon the stooping figure before him, and bore it to the ground. zzzzlt “ I arrest you in the King's name,” cried the stranger, grasping his prisoner by the throat and holding him tight. “Stir hand or foot until i have you properly secured, and I’ll send your soul to eternity.’ ’ This was such an unexpected turn of affairs that the would-be ghost could hardly believe his own senses, and was handcuffed and stripped of his dagger and pistol before he found time to speak. MJLreor&gpod. “ No, landlord,” replied the individual addressed, “I am not But I am an officer of the King, at your service, on special duty, to do what I have to-night accomplished. Yow precious son Wilhelm, whom you thought was leading an innocent sheep to the slaughter, lies in the road, killed by his father’s hand.” Two weeks later, at Bruchsale Prison, in Baden, the landlord of the sign of the Deer and the Ghost of the Robber of the Black Forest, who was the same identical person, having been proven guilty of numerous fiendish mqrders and artfully-contrived robberies, committed at different times in the Black Forest, paid the penalty of his erimes by letting fall his head from the executioner’s ax, since when traveling through Schwartzwald has not been so perilous to life and purse, nor has there been seen any Ghostly Knight of the Bond ip that section of the world,