grass and the bushes were
trampled down everywhere; the spot looked like the scene of a fight,
and in the middle of the battle-field lay the carcase of poor Turk.
Late that evening some soldiers came with lifting apparatus and took
the ponderous dead beast to the nearest knacker's yard.

When Vogt and the stretcher-bearers had climbed to the top of the hill
and saw the building to which the doctor had directed them, they
stopped short. Dr. Rademacher had spoken of a manor-house or farm; but
what they saw before them looked more like a castle. However, as there
was not another roof to be seen near or far, they could not be making
any mistake.

The stretcher-bearers looked through a gate surmounted by a count's
coronet, and saw the front door of the building. Not a sign of life was
anywhere visible. Vogt pulled the bell; but a considerable time elapsed
before there was any movement on the other side of the grating. Just as
he was about to ring a second time, a white-haired old woman appeared
on the threshold of the door at the top of the front steps. She was
dressed like any other old peasant woman of the neighbourhood. She
walked slowly to the gate along the paved pathway, a bunch of keys in
her hand.

One of the soldiers addressed her:

"Tell us, please, can you give this man here a bed, and let us have one
for another as well? They have both met with an accident, and for the
present cannot be moved any further."

The old woman looked at the unconscious corpse-like form on the
stretcher for a time without speaking, then said, in a tranquil voice:

"Oh, yes, there is room enough here."

She unlocked the gate, and let Vogt and the stretcher-bearers in.

"Where is the other?" she then asked; and the soldier answered: "He
will soon follow."

The woman nodded silently. She locked the gate behind them, and then
turned towards a wing of the building. The stretcher-bearer, walking
close behind her, whispered: "This one won't be a burden to you long.
The end must soon come." Again the old woman gazed thoughtfully at the
face that looked so deathly pale on the grey linen cushion of the
stretcher. She hesitated; then all at once she turned right round and
went up the front steps of the main building. "We can find him a bed
here," she murmured. The three soldiers stepped into a lofty hall. A
softened, mellow light from without fell through a stained-glass
window, and the floor was paved with shining tiles, on which the