Ludwig Tieck

“ They crost the large plain in every quarter; wherever trees or bushes were to be seen, thither Antonio spurred his horse, in the hope of meeting with that den of robbers and the marvellous apparition within it; or at least, should the inhabitants have absconded, as he might well expect, of gaining some sort of tidings about them.
At length the Podesta, after they had been roaming about thus for a great part of the day, began to fancy that the youth's heated imagination had merely beheld these phantoms in the wild ravings of his grief. ”

“ This, he affirmed confidently, had been the abode of the murderers and of that wonderous Crescentia. They made halt. Far and wide through the waste country there was no house to be seen, no human being to call to. ”