ey softly put into the keyhole of my
door on the outside. I was just about to make a demonstration with my
table, when the key was turned slowly three times round in the lock,
and then cautiously withdrawn, after which the footsteps retreated
along the passage and down the staircase.

I took a long breath. "Oho!" I thought, "they have locked me up that
all may be easy when I am sound asleep." I tried the door, and found
it locked, as was also the other door, behind which the pale maid
slept. This had never been so before since I had been at the castle.

Here was I imprisoned in a foreign land! The Lady fair undoubtedly was
even now standing at her window and looking across the quiet garden
toward the high-road, to see if I were not coming from the toll-house
with my fiddle. The clouds were scudding across the sky; time was
passing--and I could not get away. Ah, but my heart was sore; I did
not know what to do. And if the leaves rustled outside, or a rat
gnawed behind the wainscot, I fancied I saw the old woman gliding in
by a secret door and creeping softly through the room, with that long
knife in hand.

As, given over to such fancies, I sat on the side of my bed, I heard,
the first time for a long while, the music beneath my window. At the
first twang of the guitar a ray of light darted into my soul. I opened
the window, and called down softly, that I was awake. "Pst, pst!" was
the answer from below. Without more ado, I thrust the note into my
pocket, took my fiddle, got out of the window, and scrambled down the
ruinous old wall, clinging to the vines growing from the crevices.
One or two crumbling stones gave way, and I began to slide faster and
faster, until at last I came down upon my feet with such a sudden bump
that my teeth rattled in my head.

Scarcely had I thus reached the garden when I felt myself embraced
with such violence that I screamed aloud. My kind friend, however,
clapped his hand on my mouth, and, taking my arm, led me through the
shrubbery to the open lawn. Here, to my astonishment, I recognized the
tall student, who had a guitar slung around his neck by a broad silk
ribbon. I explained to him as quickly as possible that I wished to
escape from the garden. He seemed perfectly aware of my wishes, and
conducted me by various covert pathways to the lower door in the high
garden wall. But when we reached it, it was fast locked! The student,
however, seemed to be quite prepared for this; he produced