I caught a torch from the nearest soldier, and let its light shine on the dead face of the fourteenth Hereditary Justicer of the Wolfmark.

The men started back.  The terrible countenance of the dead affected them even more than the grim figure of the Red Axe as they had seen him stalking from the Hall of Justice to the block.

“Ah,” said the officer, not wholly irreverently, “Gottfried Gottfried has gone now to the dark place to which he hath sent so many.  But, after all, he is dead—­and I heard a monkish clerk prate the other day, ’Let the dead bury their dead.’  I have my orders, and the Duke Otho waits.  Therefore I bid you follow me, Hugo Gottfried and Leopold von Dessauer.”

So, leaving the body of my father lying on the bed in his garret, we were constrained to follow our captors down the stairs.  Across the court-yard we were hurried, and through the Hall of Justice into the private apartments of the Duke.

Otho von Reuss, now Duke of the Wolfmark, was standing erect by the great chair in which, as my father had so often described him to me, Casimir had sat so many days with his head sunk on his breast.  The new Duke stood up proudly, gazing at us with frowning brows and lowering, narrowed eyes.  This was mighty fine, but I could not help thinking of the poor appearance he had made on the hill above the Hirschgasse as he slunk off when he saw an evil cause going desperately against him.

“So,” he said, “gentlemen both, I have caught you spying in my land.  You know what those have to expect who are caught in hostile territory in disguise.”

I thought it was as well to take the high hand at once, especially since I saw that humility would avail us nothing at any rate.

“Before now I have seen Otho von Reuss in hostile territory, and a right cowed traitor he looked!” said I, boldly.

The Duke smiled upon me, like a man that has a complete retort on his tongue but who is content for the present to reserve it.

“My friend,” he said, suavely, “I will reply to you presently.  I have a word to speak to your betters.”

He turned him about to Dessauer.

“And what, Lord High Chancellor of Plassenburg, think you of this masquerading?  Dignified, is it not?  And your wondrous speech in court that was to have done such great things.  Will you be pleased to abide with us here in the Wolfsberg?  Or must you forsake us to pleasure the Emperor, who, poor man, cannot sleep of nights in his bed at Ratisbon till the eloquent Doctor is come to cheer him with the full-flowing river of speech?”

“Duke Otho,” said Dessauer, “my life is indeed in your hands.  I hold it forfeit.  A few years less or more are but little to Leopold von Dessauer now.  But there is one who will most bloodily avenge us if a hair of our heads falls to the ground.”

“Who?” said Otho, sneeringly.  “Karl Miller’s Son, I suppose.  Ah, fool that you are, I hold your poor Karl in the palm of my hand!”