his thoughts, and after listening a moment or two to
make sure that no one was nigh, he walked softly to the fireplace, and
stooping, peered up the chimney. Above him yawned a black cavernous
depth, inky with the soot of years. Hans straightened himself, and
tilting his leathern cap to one side, began scratching his bullet-head;
at last he drew a long breath. "Yes, good," he muttered to himself; "he
who jumps into the river must e'en swim the best he can. It is a vile,
dirty place to thrust one's self; but I am in for it now, and must make
the best of a lame horse."

He settled the cap more firmly upon his head, spat upon his hands, and
once more stooping in the fireplace, gave a leap, and up the chimney he
went with a rattle of loose mortar and a black trickle of soot.

By and by footsteps sounded outside the door. There was a pause; a
hurried whispering of women's voices; the twitter of a nervous laugh,
and then the door was pushed softly opens and the girl to whom the
one-eyed Hans had given the necklace of blue and white beads with the
filigree cross hanging from it, peeped uncertainly into the room. Behind
her broad, heavy face were three others, equally homely and stolid; for
a while all four stood there, looking blankly into the room and around
it. Nothing was there but the peddler's knapsack lying in the middle of
the floor-the man was gone. The light of expectancy slowly faded Out of
the girl's face, and in its place succeeded first bewilderment and then
dull alarm. "But, dear heaven," she said, "where then has the peddler
man gone?"

A moment or two of silence followed her speech. "Perhaps," said one of
the others, in a voice hushed with awe, "perhaps it was the evil one
himself to whom thou didst open the door."

Again there was a hushed and breathless pause; it was the lass who had
let Hans in at the postern, who next spoke.

"Yes," said she, in a voice trembling with fright at what she had done,
"yes, it must have been the evil one, for now I remember he had but one
eye." The four girls crossed themselves, and their eyes grew big and
round with the fright.

Suddenly a shower of mortar came rattling down the chimney. "Ach!" cried
the four, as with one voice. Bang! the door was clapped to and away they
scurried like a flock of frightened rabbits.

When Jacob, the watchman, came that way an hour later, upon his evening
round of the castle, he found a peddler's knapsack lying in the middle
of the floor