Ursela's crazy clutch from about
her young master. Then amid roars of laughter they dragged her away,
screaming and scratching and striking with her fists.

They drew back Otto's arms behind his back and wrapped them round and
round with a bowstring. Then they pushed and hustled and thrust him
forth from the room and along the passageway, now bright with the flames
that roared and crackled without. Down the steep stairway they drove
him, where thrice he stumbled and fell amid roars of laughter. At last
they were out into the open air of the court-yard. Here was a terrible
sight, but Otto saw nothing of it; his blue eyes were gazing far away,
and his lips moved softly with the prayer that the good monks of St.
Michaelsburg had taught him, for he thought that they meant to slay him.

All around the court-yard the flames roared and snapped and crackled.
Four or five figures lay scattered here and there, silent in all the
glare and uproar. The heat was so intense that they were soon forced
back into the shelter of the great gateway, where the women captives,
under the guard of three or four of the Trutz-Drachen men, were crowded
together in dumb, bewildered terror. Only one man was to be seen among
the captives, poor, old, half blind Master Rudolph, the steward,
who crouched tremblingly among the women. They had set the blaze to
Melchior's tower, and now, below, it was a seething furnace. Above, the
smoke rolled in black clouds from the windows, but still the alarm bell
sounded through all the blaze and smoke. Higher and higher the flames
rose; a trickle of fire ran along the frame buildings hanging aloft in
the air. A clear flame burst out at the peak of the roof, but still the
bell rang forth its clamorous clangor. Presently those who watched below
saw the cluster of buildings bend and sink and sway; there was a crash
and roar, a cloud of sparks flew up as though to the very heavens
themselves, and the bell of Melchior's tower was stilled forever. A
great shout arose from the watching, upturned faces.

"Forward!" cried Baron Henry, and out from the gateway they swept and
across the drawbridge, leaving Drachenhausen behind them a flaming
furnace blazing against the gray of the early dawning.

VIII. In the House of the Dragon Scorner.

Tall, narrow, gloomy room; no furniture but a rude bench a bare stone
floor, cold stone walls and a gloomy ceiling of arched stone over head;
a long, narrow slit of a window high ab