ched and dripping objects. She
saw them gesticulating wildly, and guessed that they were describing
their reception in the water-cave. Even through the noise of the water
she heard a roar of laughter go up from those who had not penetrated the
grotto. The crowd's humour seemed changed; the men were no longer fierce,
they were amused, laughing. All crowds are curiously fickle, easily
aroused, easily appeased, and the Swabian especially loves to be
overreached by a joke. She saw that the mob's attention was diverted from
her, and she knew that the danger was passed for the moment.

Would Zollern have been to the Jaegerhaus, have heard the shouting,
realised, and called out the guard to rescue her? Would the waterworks
fail and the rabble catch her, after all? Or would the people grow
bolder, face the water, and hunt her out of her hiding-place? She
listened intently, but even if a detachment of cavalry had been on the
way, she could have heard nothing save the noisy merriment below her and
the splashing water in the cave. Was that a sword-blade flashing in the
distance? Yes, thank God! she could see the outer rows of rioters looking
anxiously towards where she had seen the glint of steel through the
trees. The crowd suddenly dispersed for the most part, men ran hither and
thither aimlessly, but a knot of several hundreds remained together,
grown hostile again at the approach of hostility. Sitting stiffly on his
horse was Zollern, riding at the head of the cavalry beside the captain
of the Silver Guard. Monsieur de Zollern reined in his horse before the
mob, commanding silence with a wave of his hand. The crowd toned down,
though there were still a few angry murmurs.

'What do you in his Highness's Lustgarten?' said Zollern in a stern,
clear voice, strangely unlike his usual quiet and courtly tones. A
confused murmur ran through the crowd. 'Answer, or we shall ride you
down,' he said.

A few voices responded sullenly: 'We seek a witch,' and again an ominous
growl went up from the crowd.

'Learn that the Duke's Lustgarten is no place for you to seek a witch,'
thundered the old man. 'There are no witches here or in any of his
Highness's domains. And if you dare to molest a friend of the Duke's, you
shall be massacred without mercy! I give you time to remove yourselves
from this garden, while I count ten; one, two,' he counted. At the word
'ten' the guard charged upon the wavering mass of humanity, which fled
before the t