shuddered. Would they pass her? They were beneath the
grotto now; she could hear their words distinctly: 'To the grotto! the
grotto! the witch is there! He told us she was going there!' Merciful
Heaven! they knew then--the sentry had told them! The Graevenitz felt that
all was lost now. They _must_ find her. She crouched down against the
wall. Listen! What was that? 'The grotto is haunted; the white lady walks
there,' some one said. They hesitated. She knew no one had entered the
grotto yet. 'Nothing worse than a little water haunts the place,
comrades,' she heard a voice say, then laughter. A little water? What had
Eberhard Ludwig said? 'One might stand a siege here if one turned the
waters on from inside; I don't believe anything but a sea-serpent could
enter!'--idle words spoken in jest. Was there a chance left? If she could
find the lever--but it would not turn--the hinges must be locked with
rust. She was seeking wildly along the wall now, her hands rasped and
bleeding with scraping against the rough surface. She remembered Eberhard
Ludwig had said, 'The trick of it is on the left side of this gallery.'
How the words came back to her!--the left side. Yes! But which was the
left side of the grotto? She had lost her bearings in the darkness. Ah,
could this be it? She grasped it with both hands; it gave slightly; she
wrenched at it, throwing all her weight against it. It resisted, and she
felt as though her spine must crack with the immense strain; the veins of
her temples seemed bursting, the tips of her fingers as though the blood
must gush out. Still the heavy, rusty iron bar only gave a little. She
could hear the noise outside, but it sounded faint to her, for her entire
bodily power was concentrated, and her ears only registered the surging
of her own blood. With a sudden wrench the bar flew round in her hands,
and she fell forward on her knees, flung with her own impetus. Would the
aged mechanism respond? Was there more rust on the inner wheels and
springs? Ah! she could hear a gurgling and a whirling of wheels. Yes!
there came the water; she heard the trickle, the splashing; then the
whole grotto seemed alive. She ran to a broken place in the outer wall of
the shell-and-stucco building; she crumbled off a shell which impeded her
vision. Now she could see the mob below, though the rushing of the water
deadened the voices, and she could not distinguish the words. She saw two
men come tumbling out of the grotto, dren