of the north-eastern boundary of the
State of Maasau. Its dark waters rush tumultuously from the gorge below
the Castle of Sagan, and fling a vast enclosing arm about the bleak
plains and marshes of which the wastes of the frontier consist.

It is a land where even summer dwells coldly.

To the north a chain of hills rises black against the sky, and there,
set upon a boldly jutting spur, the Castle of Sagan dominates the
inhospitable landscape like a frown upon a sinister face.

The whole spur and the hill behind it are rough with ragged pine-woods,
and, below, the banks shelve to the river with a broken scattering of
deciduous trees, that leave on the eye the chill impression of leafless
branches tangled against a background of grey and stony slopes.

Some two or three miles south of the Castle the river breaks across a
step-like outcrop of rock, and thus forms that famous ford, across which
the Counts of Sagan used in the old days to lead their foraging
expeditions over the border.

Simon of Sagan, the present Count, inherited in an unmodified degree
the more predatory and uncivilized instincts of his forefathers.
Illiterate, brutal, and cunning, the thin veneer laid by the nineteenth
century upon his coarse-grained nature was apt to rub off on the very
slightest friction, bringing the original savage to the surface.

He was at once the terror and the pride of the stolid, silent peasantry
that lived under his rule. A fierce and fearless sportsman, his
dependents delighted in boasting of the prowess of a master whose
capricious cruelties they never dreamed of resenting. With Sagan,
throughout life, to desire was to have, and in his pursuit of the
wished-for object, he was hampered by no new-fangled sentiments of
honour, truth, or loyalty. Like other savages he quickly tired of his
fancies when once gratified. Not four years ago he had been possessed by
a frantic passion for the beautiful young wife whom he had now come to
regard with something dangerously near hate.

In dealing with such a temperament as this both Elmur and Selpdorf were
well aware that they were handling an explosive that might at any moment
wreck their most carefully laid plans. They would very much have
preferred to have made a tool of the reigning Duke, but Selpdorf, who
had been plying him for more than a month with a ceaseless and
exhaustive course of innuendo, discouragement, and veiled temptation,
was at length convinced, by the Duke's r