"Are you there, Herr Graf?"
As he went forward, she clutched his wrist with a cold hand.
"Hush," she cried, "I think I heard steps behind me!"
Both listened, not daring to breathe. Oh, what a situation for a youth whose pride it had been to hold his head high in the world!
Nothing was heard, however, save the wild, dismal murmur of the rain over the land, and the nearer drip and patter.
"No, there is nothing," he said, and reluctantly passed a limp arm round her shoulders. To his surprise, they were jerked from his touch with resentment. The next moment, however, by a mutual movement, they caught at each other; for there came an unaccountable grinding about their ears, and almost immediately the solid ground gave way under their feet.
"Gracious Powers! is the tower falling?" cried he.
Even as he clasped the figure beside him, with the instinctive, protecting action of man for woman, he was aware that the slender thing in his arms could not be the Burgravine. But at the same instant they were sliding; and before he could do aught but throw himself backwards to avoid crushing her, they were shot with giddy swiftness down a steep incline. With a shock, his feet struck level ground; he lay dazed and breathless, her weight across his breast. Stars danced before his eyes. Vaguely, as from a great distance, he heard overhead the echo of a laugh; then a thud, and once more the grinding sound, as of heavy, rusty bars. It was the laugh that brought him to his senses; too often, lately, had that laugh rung in his ears!
She raised herself in his arms.
"Are you hurt?" he cried as he lay.