“But even at the steps of the Hall of Justice he stumbled and fell.  They carried him in, and there in the robing chamber he lay unconscious for a week, and then died without speech.

“When he was dead, and ere he had been embalmed, there arose a clamor, first among the followers of Otho von Reuss, and after that among those of the Wolfsberg who expected that they would be favored by the new Duke.  It was first whispered, and then cried aloud, that the death of Duke Casimir had been compassed by witchcraft and potions.

“Cunningly and with subtlety was spread the report how my daughter and I had worked upon Duke Casimir.  How he had gone to our house, drunken a draught, and then died ere he could come to his own chamber.  But as for me, I went on my way and heeded them not.  For just then the plague, which had stricken the Duke first, stalked athwart the city unchecked, and all through it this Helene of ours was as the angel of God, coming and going by night and day among the streets and lanes of the town.  And the common folk almost worshipped her.  And so do unto this day.

“Now perhaps I did not heed this babble as I ought to have done.  But there came one night—­how long ago I have forgotten—­and with it a clamor in the court-yard.  The Black Riders, the worst of them, fiends incarnate that Otho had of late gathered about him, thundered upon us without, and presently burst in the door.

“I met them with mine axe at the stair-head, and for the better part of an hour I kept them at a distance.  And some died and some were dismembered.  For at that business I am not a man to make mistakes.  Then came Otho limping from his fall and shot me with a bolt from behind his men.  And so over my body as I lay at the stair-head they took my love and left me here to die.  And the new Duke will not kill me, for he desires that I shall see her agony ere my own life is taken.  For that alone the fiend keeps me in life!

“And that,” said my father, feebly, “is all.”

But just as he seemed to ebb away a wild fear startled him.

“No,” he cried, “there is yet something more.  Hugo, Hugo, keep me here a little!  Hold me that my mind may not wander away among the racking-wheels and the faces mopping and mowing.  I have something yet to tell.”

I held him up while Dessauer poured a drop or two of the potent liquid into his mouth.  As before, it instantly revived him.  The color came back to his cheeks.

“Quick, Hugo, lad!” he cried; “give me that black box which sits behind the block.”  I brought it, and from this he extracted a small key, which he gave me.

“Unlock the panel you see there in the wall,” he said.

I looked, but could find none.

“The oaken knob!” he cried, sharply, as to a clumsy servitor.

I could only see a rough knob in the wood-work, a little worm-eaten, and in the centre one hole a little larger than the rest.