for him to reach the
cemetery; but now the exhausted boy only dragged himself upward, to
slip on the smooth stones and lose the hold, that the dry, snow-covered
plants growing in the wide crevices treacherously offered him.

The horsemen had noticed him, and a young man-at-arms exclaimed: "A
runaway! See how the young vagabond acts. I'll seize him."

He set spurs to his horse as he spoke, and just as the boy succeeded
in reaching his goal, grasped his foot; but Ulrich clung fast to a
gravestone, so the shoe was left in the trooper's hand and his comrades
burst into a loud laugh. It sounded merry, but it echoed in the ears
of the tortured lad like a shriek from hell, and urged him onward. He
leaped over two, five, ten graves--then he stumbled over a head-stone
concealed by the snow.

With a great effort he rose again, but ere he reached the chapel fell
once more, and now his will was paralyzed. In mortal terror he clung to
a cross, and as his senses failed, thought of "the word." It seemed
as if some one had called the right one, and from pure Weakness and
fatigue, he could not remember it.

The young soldier was not willing to encounter the jeers of his
comrades, by letting the vagabond escape. With a curt: "Stop, you
rascal," he threw the shoe into the graveyard, gave his bridle to the
next man in the line; and a few minutes after was kneeling by Ulrich's
side. He shook and jerked him, but in vain; then growing anxious, called
to the others that the boy was probably dead.

"People never die so quickly!" cried the greyhaired leader of the band:
"Give him a blow."

The youth raised his arm, but did not strike the lad. He had looked into
Ulrich's face, and found something there that touched his heart. "No,
no," he shouted, "come up here, Peter; a handsome boy; but it's all over
with him, I say."

During this delay, the traveller whom the men were escorting, and his
old servant, approached the cemetery at a rapid trot. The former, a
gentleman of middle age, protected from the cold by costly furs, saw
with a single hasty glance the cause of the detention.

Instantly dismounting, he followed the leader of the troop to the end of
the wall, where there was a flight of rude steps.

Ulrich's head now lay in the soldier's arms, and the traveller gazed
at him with a look of deep sympathy. The steadfast glance of his bright
eyes rested on the boy's features as if spellbound, then he raised his
hand, beckoned to the elder