It was now quite dark; the silence of midnight reigned over everything.

Count Vavel waited in his observatory until the moon emerged from shadow.

Instead of the moon, something quite different came within the field of vision.

From the shrubbery in the rear of the manor there emerged a man.  He looked cautiously about him, then signaled backward with his hand, whereupon a second man, then a third and a fourth, appeared.

Dark as it was, the count could distinguish that the men wore masks, and carried hatchets in their hands.  He could not see what sort of clothes they wore.

They were robbers.

One of the men swung himself over the iron trellis of the veranda; his companions waited below, in the shadow of the gate.

The count hastened from his observatory.

First he wakened Henry.

“Robbers have broken into the manor, Henry!”

“The rascals certainly chose a good time to do it; now that the moon is in shadow, no one will see them,” sleepily returned Henry.

“I saw them, and I am going to scare them away.”

“We can fire off our guns from here; that will scare them,” suggested Henry.

“Are you out of your senses, Henry?  We should frighten Marie; and were she to learn that there are robbers in the neighborhood, she would want to go away from here, and you know we are chained to this place.”

“Yes; then I don’t know what we can do.  Shall I go down and rouse the village?”

“So that you may be called on to testify before a court, and be compelled to tell who you are, what you are, and how you came here?” impatiently interposed the count.

“That is true.  Then I can’t raise an alarm?”

“Certainly not.  Do as I tell you.  Stop here in the castle, take your station in front of Marie’s door, and I will go over to the manor.  Give me your walking-stick.”

“What?  You are going after the robbers with a walking-stick?”

“They are only petty thieves; they are not real robbers.  Men of this sort will run when they hear a footstep.  Besides, there are only four of them.”

“Four against one who has nothing but a cudgel!”

“In which is concealed a sharp poniard—­a very effective weapon at close quarters,” supplemented the count.  “But don’t stop here talking, Henry.  Fetch the stick, and my driving-coat, into the pocket of which put my bloodletting instruments.  Some one might faint over yonder, and I should need them.”

Henry brought the stick and coat.  Only after he had gone some distance from the castle did Count Vavel notice that some heavy object kept thumping against his side.  The faithful Henry had smuggled a double-barreled pistol into the pocket of his coat, in addition to the bloodletting instruments.  The count did not take the road which ran around the cove to the manor, but hurried to the shore, where he sprang into his canoe, and with a few powerful strokes of the oars reached the opposite shore.  A few steps took him to the manor.  His heart beat rapidly.  He had a certain dread of the coming meeting—­not the meeting with the robbers, but with the baroness.