At last I was conscious that a trumpet had blown.  Whereupon all rose up.  The secretaries stacked their papers unconcernedly with the feathers of their pens in their mouths.  And then in the solemn silence which ensued the Duke and his judges filed out of the door, while the power of the Church, represented by Bishop Peter and his priests, went forth by another.  Before I could realize the situation, Helene had vanished, as it seemed, down a trap-door in the floor.

My master accompanied Bishop Peter.  As for me, I hardly knew what I did.  I did not even stand up, till our conductor, he who had gone forward to announce us at the first, ran across to me, and, plucking me by the arm from the beam on which I leaned, whispered, hurriedly:  “Art dead or drunk, man, that thou riskest thine ears and thy neck?  Stand up while the Judges and the new Duke go by!”

So, dazed and numb, I hent me up, and lo! coming arm in arm towards me were Otho von Reuss and his newly appointed Chief Justice and assessor—­who but mine old friend Michael Texel!  The Duke bent a searching look on me as I bowed low before him, but he saw only the tan of my skin and the close bristle of my hair.  And so all passed on.

“Ho, blackamoor, thy master waits thee!  Run, if thou wouldst avoid the whipping-post!” cried another of the rout of servitors, with a small sniggering laugh.

So, putting out a hand to stay myself, I staggered weakly after my master.  I found him at the door, in talk with the confessor of the Bishop.

“And so,” he was saying, “this girl was reared in the executioner’s house.  And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secrets of necromancy, it is not known where.  I would see this Duke’s Justicer.  Does he dwell near by?  What!  In that very tower?  It is of good omen.  Let us go in thither.”

But the confessor excused himself, being in no wise desirous to visit the Red Axe, even in his time of sickness.

“I have business of the soul with Bishop Peter.  I will speak with thee again at refection,” he said, twitching his head up at the Red Tower with suspicious glances, as if he feared unseen ears might be listening, and that some of its fearful magic might even descend upon a man so notably holy as a Bishop’s confessor.

Presently Dessauer and I were across the court-yard at the well-known door.  I knocked, and listened, whereupon ensued silence.  Again and yet again I made the quaint death’s-head knocker thunder, and then, when the echoes ceased, there was once more a great silence in the tower.

I heard the blood-hounds of Duke Casimir howl.  The indigo shadow of the pinnacled Hall of Justice stretched across and touched the Red Tower with an ominous finger.

“Let us go in,” said I. And, pushing the unresisting door, I began to climb the stone stairs.  Each smoothed hollow and chipped edge was familiar to me as my name.  Indeed, much more so, for I was now passing under a false one.  So I climbed, in a dazed way, up and up.  There on my left was the sitting-room.  It had been searched high and low, escritoires rudely tossed down, aumries rifled, household stuff, grain, white linen, empty bottles, all cast about and huddled together even as the searchers had left them.