It was about a week after this when I was startled out of my deepest midnight sleep by a rush of many feet, and a fierce and sudden knocking at my father's bed-room door—the door opposite my own.

I sat up, trembling. A bright blaze gleamed along the threshold, and high above the clamour of tongues outside, I recognised my father's voice, quick, sharp, imperative. Then a door was opened and banged. Then came the rush of feet again—then silence.

It was a strange, wild hubbub; and it had all come, and gone, and was over in less than a minute. But what was it?

Seeing that fiery line along the threshold, I had thought for a moment that the ChÂteau was on fire; but the light vanished with those who brought it, and all was darkness again.

“Bertha!” I cried tremulously. “Bertha!”

Now Bertha was my Rhenish hand-maiden, and she slept in a closet opening off my room; but Bertha was as deaf to my voice as one of the Seven Sleepers.

Suddenly a shrill trumpet-call rang out in the courtyard.

I sprang out of bed, flew to Bertha, and shook her with all my strength till she woke.

“Bertha! Bertha!” I cried. “Wake up—strike a light—dress me quickly! I must know what is the matter!”

In vain Bertha yawns, rubs her eyes, protests that I have had a bad dream, and that nothing is the matter. Get up she must; dress herself and me in the twinkling of an eye; and go upon whatsoever dance I choose to lead her.

My father is gone, and his door stands wide open. We turn to the stairs, and a cold wind rushes up in our faces. We go down, and find the side-door that leads to the courtyard unfastened and ajar. There is not a soul in the courtyard. There is not the faintest glimmer of light from the guard-house windows. The sentry who walks perpetually to and fro in front of the gate is not at his post; and the gate is wide open!

Even Bertha sees by this time that something strange is afoot, and stares at me with a face of foolish wonder.

“Ach, Herr Gott!” she cries, clapping her hands together, “what's that?”

It is very faint, very distant; but quite audible in the dead silence of the night. In an instant I know what it is that has happened!

“It is the report of a musket!” I exclaim, seizing her by the hand, and dragging her across the courtyard. “Quick! quick! Oh, Monsieur Maurice! Monsieur Maurice!”

The night is very dark. There is no moon, and the stars, glimmering through a veil of haze, give little light. But we run as recklessly as if it were bright day, past the barracks, past the parade-ground, and round to the great gates on the garden side of the ChÂteau. These, however, are closed, and the sentry, standing watchful and motionless, with his musket made ready, refuses to let us through.

In vain I remind him that I am privileged, and that none of these gates are ever closed against me. The man is inexorable.

“No, FrÄulein Gretchen,” he says, “I dare not. This is not a fit hour for you to be out. Pray go home.”

“But Gaspar, good Gaspar,” I plead, clinging to the gate with both hands, “tell me if he has escaped! Hark; oh, hark! there it is again!”

And another, and another shot rings through the still night-air.

The sentry almost stamps with impatience.

“Go home, dear little FrÄulein! Go home at once,” he says. “There is danger abroad to-night. I cannot leave my post, or I would take you home myself.... Holy Saint Christopher! they are coming this way! Go—go—what would his Excellency the Governor say, if he found you here?”

I see quick gleams of wandering lights among the trees—I hear a distant shout! Then, seized by a sudden panic, I turn and fly, with Bertha at my heels—fly back the way I came, never pausing till I find myself once more at the courtyard gate. Here—breathless, trembling, panting—I stop to listen and look back. All is silent;—as silent as before.

“But, liebe Gretchen,” says Bertha, as breathless as myself, “what is to do to-night?”

There is a coming murmur on the air. There is a red glow reflected on the barrack windows ... they are coming! I turn suddenly cold and giddy.

“Hush, Bertha!” I whisper, “we must not stay here. Papa will be angry! Let us go up to the corridor window.”

So we go back into the house, upstairs the way we came, and station ourselves at the corridor window, which looks into the courtyard.

Slowly the glow broadens; slowly the sound resolves itself into an irregular tramp of many feet and a murmur of many voices.

Then suddenly the courtyard is filled with soldiers and lighted torches, and ... and I clasp my hands over my eyes in an agony of terror, lest the picture I drew a few days since should be coming true.

“What do you see, Bertha?” I falter. “Do you—do you see Monsieur Maurice?”

“No, but I see Gottlieb Kolb, and Corporal Fritz, and ... yes—here is Monsieur Maurice between two soldiers, and his Excellency the Colonel walking beside them!”

I looked up, and my heart gave a leap of gladness. He was not dead—he was not even wounded! He had been pursued and captured; but at least he was safe!

They stopped just under the corridor window. The torchlight fell full upon their faces. Monsieur Maurice looked pale and composed; perhaps just a shade haughtier than usual. My father had his drawn sword in his hand.

“Corporal Fritz,” he said, turning to a soldier near him, “conduct the prisoner to his room, and post two sentries at his door, and one under his windows.” Then turning to Monsieur Maurice, “I thank God, Sir,” he said gravely, “that you have not paid for your imprudence with your life. I have the honour to wish you good night.”

Monsieur Maurice ceremoniously took off his hat.

“Good night, Colonel Bernhard,” he said. “I beg you, however, to remember that I had withdrawn my parole.”

“I remember it, Monsieur Maurice,” replied my father, drawing himself up, and returning the salutation.

Monsieur Maurice then crossed the courtyard with his guards, and entered the ChÂteau by the door leading to the state apartments. My father, after standing for a moment as if lost in thought, turned away and went over to the guard-house.

The soldiers then dispersed, or gathered into little knots of twos and threes, and talked in low voices of the events of the night.

“Accomplices!” said one, just close against the window where Bertha and I still lingered. “Liebe Mutter! I'll take my oath he had one! Why, it was I who first caught sight of the prisoner gliding through the trees—I saw him as plainly as I see you now—I covered him with my musket—I wouldn't have given a copper pfennig for his life, when paff! at the very moment I pulled the trigger, out steps a fellow from behind my shoulder, knocks up my musket, and disappears like a flash of lightning—Heaven only knows where, for I never laid eyes on him again!”

“What was he like?” asks another soldier, incredulously.

“Like? How should I know? It was as dark as pitch. I just caught a glimpse of him in the flash of the powder—an ugly, brown-looking devil he seemed! but he was gone in a breath, and I had no time to look for him.”

The soldiers round about burst out laughing.

“Hold, Karl!” says one, slapping him boisterously on the shoulder. “You are a good shot, but you missed aim for once. No need to conjure up a brown devil to account for that, old comrade!”

Karl, finding his story discredited, retorted angrily; and a quarrel was fast brewing, when the sergeant on guard came up and ordered the men to their several quarters.

“Holy Saint Bridget!” said Bertha, shivering, “how cold it is! and there, I declare, is the Convent clock striking half after one! Liebe Gretchen, you really must go to bed—what would your father say?”

So we both crept back to bed. Bertha was asleep again almost before she had laid her head upon her pillow; but I lay awake till dawn of day.

---