horse's head, closely surveying the
road they had traveled.

"Must we go on?" she said, mechanically.

"Only one of them can cross at a time," he answered, without stirring.
"It is better to meet them here."

"Oh," she spoke up, "if the waters would only rise a little more and
carry away the bridge."

He glanced quickly around him, weighing the slender chance for success
if he made that last desperate stand, and then, grasping a loose plank,
began using it as a lever against one of the weakened supports of the
bridge. Soon the beam gave way, and the structure, now held but at the
middle and one side, had already begun to sag, when from around the
curve of the highway appeared Louis of Hochfels, and a dozen of his
followers.

The free baron rode to the brim of the torrent, regarded the flood and
the bridge, and stopped. He was mounted on a black Spanish barb whose
glistening sides were flecked with foam; a cloak of cloth of gold fell
from his brawny shoulders; his heavy, red face looked out from beneath
a sombrero, fringed with the same metal. A gleam of grim recollection
shone from his bloodshot eyes as they rested on the fool.

"Oh, there you are!" he shouted, with savage satisfaction. "Out of the
frying-pan into the fire! Or rather--for you escaped the fagots at
Notre Dame--out of the fire into the frying-pan!"

Above the tumult of the torrent his stentorian tones were plainly
heard. Without response, the jester inserted the plank between the
structure and the middle support. The other, perceiving his purpose,
uttered an execration that was drowned by the current, and irresolutely
regarded the means of communication between the two shores, obviously
undetermined about trusting his great bulk to that fragile intermedium.
Here was a temporary check on which he had not calculated. But if he
demurred about crossing himself, the free baron did not long display
the same infirmity of purpose regarding his followers.

"Over with you!" he cried angrily to them. "The lightest first! Fifty
pistoles to the first across!" And then, calling out to the fool: "In
half an hour, you, my fine wit-cracker, shall be hanging from a branch.
As for the maid, she is a witch, I am told--we will test her with
drowning."

Tempted by their leader's offer, one of the troopers, a lank,
muscular-looking fellow, at once drove the spurs into his horse. Back
and forth moved the lever in the hands of the jester; the soldier was
m