anno says the
wounds are not at all dangerous."

"And the other?"

"Not a scratch. On the Hydra, with two severely wounded slaves. The
porter and the others were killed."

"And the statues?"

"They-such things can't be accomplished without some little
blunder-Labaja thinks so, too."

"Did they escape you?"

"Only one. I myself helped to smash the other, which stood in the
workroom that looks out upon the water. The gold and ivory are on the
ship. We had horrible work with the statue which stood in the room whose
windows faced the square. They dragged the great monster carefully into
the studio that fronts upon the water. But probably it is still standing
there, if the thing is not already--just see how the flames are whirling
upward!--if it is not already burned with the house."

"What a misfortune!" Ledscha reproachfully exclaimed.

"It could not be helped," the boy protested. "People from Tennis
suddenly rushed in. The first--a big, furious fellow-killed our Loule
and the fierce Judas. Now he has to pay for it. Little Chareb threw the
black powder into his eyes, while Hanno himself thrust the torch in his
face."

"And Bias, the blackbeard's slave?"

"I don't know. Oh, yes! Wounded, I believe, on board the ship."

Meanwhile the lad, a precocious fourteen-year-old cabin-boy from the
Hydra, pointed to the boat which lay ready, and took Ledscha's bundle in
his hand; but she sprang into the light skiff before him and ordered it
to be rowed to the Owl's Nest, where she must bid Mother Tabus good-bye.
The cabin-boy, however, declared positively that the command could not
be obeyed now, and at his signal two black sailors urged it with swift
oar strokes toward the northwest, to Satabus's ship. Hanno wished to
receive his bride as a wife from his father's hand.

Ledscha had not insisted upon the fulfilment of her desire, but as the
boat passed the Pelican Island her gaze rested on the lustreless waning
disk of the moon. She thought of the torturing night, during which she
had vainly waited here for Hermon, and a triumphant smile hovered around
her lips; but soon the heavy eyebrows of the girl who was thus leaving
her home contracted in a frown--she again fancied she saw, where the
moon was just fading, the body of a gigantic, hideous spider. She
banished the illusion by speaking to the boy--spiders in the morning
mean misfortune.

The early dawn, which was now crimsoning the east, reminded her of the
blood wh