“By my faith!” replied the groom, laughing heartily, “it may have been a shadow—­but flesh-and-blood is what my true Ogre is waiting for!  We are up betimes, worthy Hornitz, and we have neither had our breakfast.  What has put you on the alert?”

“A general order!  There was a riot at the great music hall of the Freyers Brothers—­plague on it!  What art they have in brewing beer that leaves a pleasant memory! and we have orders to overhaul every suspicious character in the streets, while none can get out of the town.  It appears that some monstrous criminal is at large!  Oh, for the reward, that would buy me a little cottage on the Friedplatz road with beer unstinted!”

“Pooh! as usual, you gentlemen of the nightwatch are badly informed,” grumbled the ostler, pushing the dog into a corner.  “I know what it was, for one of the theatrical players is a lady lodger of ours.  She was unfairly supplanted by some insignificant young upstart and, of course, the public, always knowing true talent from shallow pretension, broke up the seats and pelted the manager with it along with his imposter!”

“Well, good-morning, Karlchen,” said the gendarme, taking the correction in good part, and withdrawing his booted leg from the door.  “I may see you when I am off duty and we will make sure that Freyers have better taste in brewing beer than in choosing actresses.”

Having heard enough to convince him that Daniels was in a house guarded by the faithful, Claudius proceeded up the stairs dimly visible before him at the end of a clean, bricked passage.  His progress was more easy when he reached the landing, as the lamp mentioned, in a recess and projecting its rays in two directions, shone on the door of the suite of three rooms where the Jew and his daughter were lodged.

Pausing before he knocked, Claudius heard the soft step of slippered feet.  On tapping discreetly, a reserved voice ordered him to come in.  It was Daniels who spoke; he was in a dressing-gown, with bare head, and, having cleared the chairs back to enable him to make the circuit of the table in the center of the spacious room, had apparently been walking round it like a caged lion.  On the table were various articles heaped up without order and an open trunk, partly packed.  He looked up in emotion while Claudius paused on the sill, more affected than he understood the reason for.

“Ah, heaven be praised! it is you,” said the old man with grave joy, and holding out his hands, paternally.  “I feared for the worst—­that you would never come.  It is so serious a matter:  a nobleman and an officer who belongs to the Secret Intelligence Department—­his death is not to go unpunished.”

“At least, he is not dead,” said the student; and he hastened to tell his story.

“Speak at any tone you please,” interrupted Daniels, at the stage of his having escaped from the music-hall by the artistes’ door and of the help of the woman whom he did not profess to distinguish.  “My daughter is sleeping, and a sitting-room is here between her apartment and this one.”