them. Manasseh
now embraced Blanka and Anna and bade them farewell.

"Where are you going?" asked Blanka, in alarm. Jonathan's pale face
seemed at that moment to float before her vision, and she feared to part
with her husband, lest he should not return.

"I am going to the enemy's camp."

"Alone?"

"No, not alone. I am well attended: Uriel goes before me, Raphael is on
my right hand, Gabriel on my left, behind me Michael, and over my head
Israel."

"But you are going unarmed."

"No, I am armed with the peace treaty which our foes concluded with me,
swearing not to attack Toroczko. That is my weapon, and with it I will
win a bloodless victory."

Blanka looked sorrowfully into her husband's face, and in that look was
expressed all that her tongue was powerless to utter,--her infinite love
for the man and her deep despair at the thought of perhaps never again
meeting those eyes so full of love and tenderness for her.

"I tried it once before, you know," he reminded her, "and you know how
well I succeeded then. The leader of the Wallachians is an old
acquaintance of mine." But this last was true in a sense that the
speaker little dreamed--as he was to learn later.

Blanka pressed her husband's hand. "Very well," said she, with a brave
effort at cheerful confidence, "do as seems best to you, and Heaven will
care for us."

Manasseh could not suppress a sigh as he kissed his wife on the
forehead. Anna, who could read her brother's face, knew what that sigh
meant.

"You need not be anxious about us, dear brother," she said. "We are
under God's protection, and are prepared for the worst. We decided long
ago what we should do if we were forced to it. When all is lost that is
dearest to us,--our loved ones, our home, our country,--we shall not
wait tamely for the enemy to break into the house. Here are two pistols:
each of us will take one of them and point it at the other's heart, each
will utter the name that is last in her thoughts, and that will be the
last word that will ever pass her lips. Now you may go on your errand
and need not fear for us."

Manasseh's feelings were too deep for utterance. Without a word he
kissed the dear ones before him and then left the house and hastened
away. He turned his face toward St. George. He was alone and had not
even a stick in his hand.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. To a good pedestrian St.
George is only half an hour's walk from Toroczko. On the outskirt