The poor infant uttered the most lamentable shrieks.
'For God's sake, let me go to my child!' exclaimed Katharine. 'It is dying.'
'In that case I shall have saved a soul to heaven,' answered the captain.
'You cannot be a man!' cried the miserable mother. 'You must be satan disguised in the human form.' Convulsive spasms seized her. Her eyes closed, her lips became blue, and her senses fled.
Some one knocked loudly at the door. 'Are you here, Frau Katharine?' asked a voice which the captain recognized with terror.
'Back!' cried the sentinel without. 'The captain is with the lady.'
'The captain! and she answers not, and the child is screaming!' exclaimed the same voice, with wild alarm,--and powerful blows thundered upon the door.
'Back!' again cried the sentinel, and immediately afterwards, with the exclamation, 'Jesus Maria!' a heavy fall was heard near the door, which now flew in fragments. Dorn rushed into the room over the body of the wounded sentinel, who lay groaning upon the floor, with a drawn sword in his hand. The captain sprang to meet the intruder, but shrunk back, pale and trembling, the moment he recognized him.
'Cut him down from behind!' cried he to his soldiers who now came rushing into the room.
'Down to hell!' thundered Dorn, thrusting the captain through the body. With a frightful death-cry he fell to the earth, and Dorn threw down his bloody weapon, 'I am your prisoner,' said he, with imposing dignity, to the soldiers, and took the child from the floor. 'Call the maidens to take care of the mother and infant, and then lead me to your colonel, to whom I have something of importance to say.'