When I regained consciousness I was in my father's room, lying on the bed. Joubert was sitting on the bed beside me.

"Joubert," said I, "where is he?"

"Who?"

"Vogel."

"God knows!" said Joubert. "Here, drink this."

It was brandy, and it nearly took my breath away, but it gave me life.

"Now," said Joubert, putting the glass on the table by the bed and taking my small trousers in his hand, "put these on."

"Why am I to dress, Joubert?"

"We are going away. Ah, fine doings there have been! And who knows the end of it all?"

As he helped me to dress, he told me of what had occurred. The gentlemen below had been playing cards when the shrieks of Vogel had sundered the cardplayers like the sword of death.

Rushing upstairs, they had found Marengo guarding the dead body of Vogel, and me standing on the bed screaming. When my father caught me in his arms, I told all. Of Vogel's attempt to smother me, of the knife I had found in my pillow, and of the occurrence in the bell-tower. It must have been my subconscious intelligence speaking, for I remember nothing of it; but it was enough.

"Then," said Joubert, "the General, with you tucked under his left arm, turned on the Baron. 'What is this?' said he. 'Assassination in the Schloss Lichtenberg!'"

"'Liar!' cried the Baron. And before the word was well from his mouth, crack! the General had hit him open-fisted in the face, and the mark sprang up as if the General had hit him red-handed. Mordieu! I never saw a neater blow given, or one so taken, for the Baron never blinked. He just nodded his head, as if to say, 'Yes.' Then he put his arm in Count Hahn's, and the General turned to Major von der Goltz, and, taking him by the arm, followed the others. Then word came to pack up and have you ready, for we are leaving the schloss this night. Now then, vite!"

"But, Joubert, I remember nothing of all that."

"All what?"

"Telling my father of Vogel and the bell."

"Well, whether you remember it or not, there it is."

"And the knife—— Joubert, did you not, you yourself, stick the knife in the pillow?"

"I!" said Joubert. "When would you catch me playing such fool's tricks as that?"

"Joubert."

"Yes?"

"I think I know why they wanted to kill me."

"Why?"

"Because they thought I would kill little Carl."

Joubert grunted.

"Here," said he, "hold up your foot till I lace that boot."

Scarcely had he done so before General Hahn appeared at the door.

"Dress the child, pack, and be ready to leave the schloss at once!" he cried to Joubert. "The horses are being got ready."

"I have my orders," replied Joubert.

He grumbled and talked to himself, and swore, as he got the rest of my clothes on, for I was quite unable to help myself. And then, when I was ready, he gave me a great, smacking kiss that nearly took my breath away, and his hand was shaky, and I had never seen it shake before, and he had never kissed me before in his life. Then he left me sitting on the bed, and I heard him in the next room, where the dead man was, packing my things.

In the midst of all this, the castle clock struck eleven.

And now from below came the trampling of horses, and the crash of wheels on gravel, and the harsh German voices of the servants. Doors banged, and a man came up, flung our door open, and cried: "Ready!" And Joubert, with a portmanteau on his shoulder, led me along by the hand down the corridor, the servant following with the rest of our luggage.

Down in the hall, which was brilliantly lit, Major von der Goltz and my father stood talking together in one corner, and Von Lichtenberg and General Hahn stood by the great fireplace, their hands behind them, neither of them speaking, and both with their eyes on the floor as if in profound thought. And I noticed that the great red mark on the Baron's cheek was still there, just as if a blood-stained hand had struck him.

When they saw us coming, with Marengo following us, Von Lichtenberg and the General took their hats from a table close by and walked towards the door, which was opened for them by a servant.

General Hahn held under his arm a bundle done up in a cloak, and from it protruded two sword-hilts.

My father, taking my hand and followed by Major von der Goltz, came after the Baron.

It was a clear and windy night; flying clouds were passing over the moon. Two carriages were drawn up at the door, and a dozen men with torches blazing and blowing in the wind gave light whilst our luggage was put in.

The first carriage was our own, the second a carriage belonging to the schloss.

Joubert put our luggage in and mounted on the box; then my father, bowing to Major von der Goltz, held the door open; the Major, with a slight bow to my father, got in; we followed, the carriage started, running torchmen leading us and following behind.

"Are we truly going away, father?" I asked nestling close to him and holding his hand.

"Yes, my child; we are going away."

"Why are those men with torches running with us?"

"You will see—you will see. Major von der Goltz, I hope those words I have just said to you will not be forgotten in the event——"

"They shall be remembered," said the Major.

Up to this all the company at the schloss had been hail-fellow-well-met one with the other. My father had addressed Von der Goltz as Franz, and the Major had been just as familiar in his manner, but all this was now changed. The two men were as stiff and formal as though they had never met before, one facing the other, bolt upright, and with heads somewhat averted, as I could see by the dancing torchlight; and in my childish heart I wondered at this.

As we slowed up to pass the great gates of the avenue, I heard the wheels of the other carriage coming behind, and as we made the turning, I saw it, with the light of the torches glinting on the headpieces of the horses, and behind the carriage the plumes of the pine-trees showed against the moon, and they looked like the plumes of a hearse.

The estate of Von Lichtenberg stretched for a mile and more beyond the gates; and it seems that it is not etiquette to kill a man on his own estate, no more than it is etiquette to strike a man in his own house.

We took the forest road. Mixed with the sound of hoofs and wheels, I could hear the footsteps of the running torchmen: the flickering light shot in between the tree-boles, disturbing the wood creatures, and, as we went, all of a sudden, the jÄgers running with us broke out in a chorus of what seemed lamentation mixed with curses.

Von der Goltz sprang up on the seat and looked ahead.

"A white hare is running before us," said he. "That is bad for Count Carl von Lichtenberg."

My father bowed slightly, as if to a half-heard remark.

A white hare, it seems, was the sign of death in the house of Lichtenberg.

Turning a bend in the road, the carriage drew up.

We waited for a moment till the sound behind told us that the second carriage had also stopped. Then we alighted.

"Joubert," said my father, handing him a packet, "you will stay here with the dog. Open this packet should anything befall me. Patrick, you will come with me."

"Dieu vous garde!" said Joubert. And, following the others, we entered the forest.

I felt sick and faint with fear, and the light of the dancing torch-flames made me reel. I held tight to my father's hand, and I remember thinking how big and strong and warm it was. What was about to happen I could not guess, but I knew that the shadow of death was with us, and the chill of him in my heart.

We had not gone more than two hundred yards when we came to a clearing amidst the trees—a breezy, open space, that the moon lit over the waving pine-tops. Here the jÄgers divided themselves into two lines, five yards or so apart, and stood motionless as soldiers on parade. Baron von Lichtenberg with his arms folded, stood with his back to us, looking at the clouds running across the face of the moon; and the two army officers, drawing aside, began to undo the swords from the bundle.

"Patrick," said my father, leading me under the shade of the trees, "I struck my kinsman in his own house to-night. The only excuse I can make for that action is to kill him, so let this be a lesson to you the length of your life." He stopped, stooped, hugged me in his arms, and then strode out into the torchlight, and took his sword from Von der Goltz.

It was a curious little speech, or would have been from anyone but an Irishman. But I was not thinking of it. I was mesmerised by the sight before me.

When the two men took their swords they returned them to the seconds. The swords were then bent to prove the steel, and measured, and then returned to the principals.

Then the jÄgers moved together almost shoulder to shoulder, and in the space between the two lines of torches the duellists took their stand. There was dead silence for a moment.

I could hear the wind in the pines, and the guttering and slobbering of the flambeaux, and a fox barking, away somewhere in the forest.

Then came General Hahn's voice, and, instant upon it, the quarrelling of the rapiers.

The antagonists were perfect swordsmen; the rapiers were now invisible, now like jets of light as the torchlight shot along them. Over the music of the steel, the wind in the pine-trees said "Hush!" and the barking of the fox still came from the far distance.

At first you might have thought these two gentlemen were at play, till the fury subdued by science broke loose at last, and the rings and flashes of light and the clash of the steel spoke the language of the thing and the meaning of it.

It was a duel to the death; and I, looking on, my soul on fire, agony in my heart, my hands thrust deep in the pockets of my caped overcoat, counted the bits of biscuit-crumbs in those same pockets, and made tiny balls from the fluff, and noted with deep and particular attention the extent of a hole in one of the linings. The interior of my overcoat-pockets marked itself upon my memory as sharply and insistently as the scene before me—such a strange thing is mind.

Yet I knew that, if Von Lichtenberg was the conqueror, my father would die, and I would be left to the mercy of Von Lichtenberg.

Yet, despite all my fears, oh, that heroic moment! The concentrated fury of the fight beneath the singing pines, lit by the blazing torches! Then, in a flash, it was over. Von Lichtenberg's sword flew from his hand; his arms flung out as though he were crucified on the air; and then, just as though he were a man of wax before a fiery furnace, he fell together horribly, and became a heap on the ground.

The hammer of Thor could not have felled him more effectually than the rapier that had passed through his armpit like a ribbon of light.

I ran to my father, and clung to him.

General Hahn, on one knee, was supporting Von Lichtenberg in his arms. The Baron's face was clay-coloured, his head drooped forward, and his jaw hung loose.

Hahn, with his knee in the armpit to suppress the terrible bleeding, called for a knife to rip the sleeve; and as they were doing it the stricken man came to and yawned.

He yawned just as a man yawns who is deadly tired and half roused from sleep, and he tossed his arms just in the same way. He seemed to care about nothing, his weariness was so great.

And then, just as a man speaks who is half roused and wants to drop asleep again:

"Hahn."

"I am here."

"Ah, yes! I leave the child to your care and Gretel——"

"Yes"

"She is to be brought up just as I have done. Should she love him, the old tragedy will come again. She must never know love——" Then he yawned, and yawned, rousing slightly as they cut his sleeve to pieces in an attempt to reach the wound. He didn't seem to care. He spoke only once again: "Hahn!"

"I am listening."

The wind in the pine-trees, and the fox in the wood and the slobbering of the torches filled the silence.

"I am listening."

"He is dead," said Von der Goltz.