have given it to the dames. I swore
an oath that no Vuelph that ever left my hands should be able to strike
such a blow as thy father gave to Baron Frederick, and now I will fulfil
that too. Catch the boy, Casper, and hold him."

As the man in the mail shirt stepped toward little Otto, the boy leaped
up from where he sat and caught the Baron about the knees. "Oh! dear
Lord Baron," he cried, "do not harm me; I am only a little child, I have
never done harm to thee; do not harm me."

"Take him away," said the Baron, harshly.

The fellow stooped, and loosening Otto's hold, in spite of his struggles
and cries, carried him to the bench, against which he held him, whilst
the Baron stood above him.

Baron Henry and the other came forth from the cell, carefully closing
the wooden door behind them. At the end of the corridor the Baron
turned, "Let the leech be sent to the boy," said he. And then he turned
and walked away.

Otto lay upon the hard couch in his cell, covered with a shaggy bear
skin. His face was paler and thinner than ever, and dark rings encircled
his blue eyes. He was looking toward the door, for there was a noise of
someone fumbling with the lock without.

Since that dreadful day when Baron Henry had come to his cell, only two
souls had visited Otto. One was the fellow who had come with the Baron
that time; his name, Otto found, was Casper. He brought the boy his rude
meals of bread and meat and water. The other visitor was the leech or
doctor, a thin, weasand little man, with a kindly, wrinkled face and a
gossiping tongue, who, besides binding wounds, bleeding, and leeching,
and administering his simple remedies to those who were taken sick in
the castle, acted as the Baron's barber.

The Baron had left the key in the lock of the door, so that these two
might enter when they chose, but Otto knew that it was neither the one
nor the other whom he now heard at the door, working uncertainly with
the key, striving to turn it in the rusty, cumbersome lock. At last the
bolts grated back, there was a pause, and then the door opened a little
way, and Otto thought that he could see someone peeping in from without.
By and by the door opened further, there was another pause, and then
a slender, elfish-looking little girl, with straight black hair and
shining black eyes, crept noiselessly into the room.

She stood close by the door with her finger in her mouth, staring at
the boy where he lay upon his couch, and O