"The boy upstairs was a blind. He has followed
us." He struck the sausage furiously out of Herman's hand. "Tonight the
police will come. And what then?"

"If you had taken my advice," said the clerk, "you would have got rid of
that fellow upstairs long ago." He picked up the sausage and dusted it
with his hand. "But I do not believe the police will come. The child was
bitten. I saw them enter."

Nevertheless, that night, while Herman Spier kept watch at the street
door, the concierge labored in the little yard behind the house. He
moved a rabbit hutch and, wedging his huge body behind it, loosened a
board or two in the high wooden fence.

More than the Palace prepared for flight.

Still later, old Adelbert roused from sleep. There were footsteps in the
passage outside, the opening of a door. He reflected that the concierge
was an owl and, the sounds persisting, called out an irritable order for
quiet.

Then he slept again, and while he slept the sounds recommenced. Had he
glanced out into the passage, then, he would have seen two men, half
supporting a third, who tottered between them. Thus was the student
Haeckel, patriot and Royalist, led forth to die.

And he did not die.

CHAPTER XXVIII. TEE CROWN PRINCE'S PILGRIMAGE

The day when Olga Loschek should have returned to the city found her too
ill to travel. No feigned sickness this, but real enough, a matter of
fever and burning eyes, and of mutterings in troubled sleep.

Minna was alarmed. She was fond of her mistress, in spite of her
occasional cruelties, and lately the Countess had been strangely gentle.
She required little attention, wished to be alone, and lay in her great
bed, looking out steadily at the bleak mountain-tops, to which spring
never climbed.

"She eats nothing," Minna said despairingly to the caretaker. "And her
eyes frighten me. They are always open, even in the night, but they seem
to see nothing."

On the day when she should have returned, the Countess roused herself
enough to send for Black Humbert, fretting in the kitchen below. He had
believed that she was malingering until he saw her, but her flushed and
hollow cheeks showed her condition.

"You must return and explain," she said. "I shall need more time, after
all." When he hesitated, she added: "There are plenty to watch that I do
not escape. I could not, if I would. I have not the strength."

"Time is passing," he said gruffly, "and we get nowhere."

"As soon as I