barred in
by an iron grating.

"Here we are," he cried, throwing the reins on the horses' necks.

He laid hold of the deer's-foot bell-handle, and the clear sound of a
bell broke the stillness.

After waiting a few minutes the light of a lantern flickered in the deep
archway, showing us in its semicircular frame of ruddy light the figure
of a humpbacked dwarf, yellow-bearded, broad-shouldered, and wrapped in
furs from head to foot.

You might have thought him, in the deep shadow, some gnome or evil spirit
of earth realised out of the dreams of the Niebelungen Lieder.

He came towards us at a very leisurely pace, and laid his great flat
features close against the massive grating, straining his eyes, and
trying to make us out in the darkness in which we were standing.

"Is that you, Sperver?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

"Open at once, Knapwurst," was the quick reply. "Don't you know how cold
it is?"

"Oh! I know you now," cried the little man; "there's no mistaking you.
You always speak as if you were going to gobble people up."

The door opened, and the dwarf, examining me with his lantern, with an
odd expression in his face, received me with "Willkommen, herr doctor,"
but which seemed to say besides, "Here is another who will have to go
away again as others have done." Then he quietly closed the door, whilst
we alighted, and came to take our horses by the bridle.

CHAPTER II.

Following Sperver, who ascended the staircase with rapid steps, I was
still able to convince myself that the Castle of Nideck had not an
undeserved reputation.

It was a true stronghold, partly cut out of the rock, such as used
formerly to be called a _chateau d'ambuscade_. Its lofty vaulted arches
re-echoed afar with our steps, and the outside air blowing with sharp
gusts through the loopholes--narrow slits made for the archers of former
days--caused our torches to flare and flicker from space to space over
the faintly-illuminated protruding lines of the arches as they caught the
uncertain light.

Sperver knew every nook and corner of this vast place. He turned now to
the right and now to the left, and I followed him breathless. At last he
stopped on a spacious landing, and said to me--

"Now, Fritz, I will leave you for a minute with the people of the castle
to inform the young Countess Odile of your arrival."

"Do just what you think right."

"Then you will find the head butler, Tobias Offenloch, an old soldier of