that? Could they be fighting in the open? Could they have come
out into the courtyard? Could they have received aid from some
unexpected quarter?

The crack of fire-arms lasted a few minutes longer. Twice again could be
heard that particular roar, and then all was quiet again.

Were they done for already?

For a long time no sound, far or near.

Sarvoelgyi looked and listened in restless impatience. He wished to
pierce the night with his eyes, he wished to hear voices through this
numbing stillness. He put his ear to the opening in the iron shutter.

Some one knocked at the shutter from without.

Startled, he looked out.

The old gypsy woman was there: creeping along beside the wall she had
come this far unnoticed.

"Sarvoelgyi," said the woman in a loud whisper: "Sarvoelgyi, do you hear?
They have seized the money: the magistrate has it. Take care!"

Then she disappeared as noiselessly as she had come.

In a moment the sweat on Sarvoelgyi's body turned to ice. His teeth
chattered from fever.

What the gypsy woman had said was, for him, the terror of death.

The most evident proof was in the hands of the law: before the awful
deed had been accomplished, the hand that directed it had been betrayed.

And perhaps the terrible butchery was now in its last stage. They were
torturing the victims! Pouring upon them the hellish vengeance of
wounded wild beasts! Tearing them limb from limb! Looking with their
hands that dripped with blood among the documents for the letter with
five seals.

Already all was betrayed! Fever shook his every limb. Why that great
stillness outside? What secret could this monstrous night hide that it
kept such silence as this?

Suddenly the silence was broken by a wild creature's howl.

No it was no animal. Only a man could howl so, when agony had changed
him to a mad beast, who in the fury of his pain had forgotten human
voice.

The noise sounded first in the distance, beyond the garden of the
castle, but presently approached, and a figure of horror ran howling
down the street.

A figure of horror indeed!

A man, white from head to foot.

All his clothes, every finger of his hand, was white: every hair of his
head, his beard, moustache, his whole face was white, glistening,
shining white, and as he ran he left white footsteps behind him.

Was it a spirit?

The horror rushed up to Sarvoelgyi's door, rattling the latch and in a
voice of raving anger began to howl as he shoo