When supper was over, Tina desired Karl to bring up two or three pails of warm water, and several cloths, ‘for,’ said she ’it will do us all good to bathe our feet;’ whereupon Adelaide requested one might be carried to her room, which was done by Karl.  He was now alone with her, and it was almost the first time he had been so, except when they ran up the hill together, since the day they met.  When he had set down the pail by her bedside, he stood looking at her with a strange expression of countenance.  He knew that the water he had fetched up was designed for the purpose of washing away the blood that he was about to spill, and he longed to tell her so, and set her on her guard; but he was afraid.  He looked at her, looked at the water, and looked at the bed.

‘Well, Karl,’ she said laughing, ’good-night.  When we part the day after to-morrow, I shan’t forget your services, I assure you.’  The lad’s eyes still wandered from her to the water and the bed, but he said nothing, nor stirred, till she repeated her ‘good-night,’ and then he quitted the room in silence.

‘Poor stupid creature!’ thought Adelaide; ’he has scarcely as much intelligence as the horses that draw us.’

‘Now we must have no bungling to-night, Karl,’ said Mazzuolo; ’we will keep quiet till two o’clock, and then when everybody is asleep, we’ll to business.’

‘But what is it to be done with?’ inquired Tina.

’There’s something in the carriage under the seat; I brought it away the night we slept at Baireuth,’ replied Mazzuolo; ’I’ll step and fetch it;’ and he left the room; but presently returned, saying that there were people about the carriage, and he was afraid they might wonder what he was going to do with so suspicious-looking an instrument.  ‘Karl can fetch it when they are gone to bed.’

As it was yet only midnight, Tina proposed that they should all lie down and take a little rest; and the suggestion being agreed to, she and her husband stretched themselves on their bed, whilst Karl made the floor his couch, and, favoured by his unexcitable temperament, was soon asleep, in spite of what was before him.

It was past two o’clock when he felt himself shaken by the shoulder.  ‘Come, be stirring,’ said Mazzuolo;’ we must about it without delay—­the house has been quiet for some time.’

Karl was a heavy sleeper, and as he sat up rubbing his eyes, he could not at first remember what he was awakened for, nor how he came to be upon the floor.  ‘Come,’ said Mazzuolo, ’come, she’s fast asleep; I have just been to her room to look at her.  You must step down now to the carriage and bring up the axe I left under the seat.’

Karl began to recollect himself, and awkwardly rising from his hard couch, shaking and stretching himself like a dog, he prepared to obey, indifferent to everything at the moment but the annoyance of being disturbed in his slumbers.  ‘If you should meet anybody,’ said Mazzuolo, ’say that your mistress is ill, and that you are going to fetch the medicine-chest.’