Valetto started suddenly up from his seat as he beheld Oberntraut's face; and the soldier, who held Agnes, turned fiercely round and was drawing his sword. But the young baron's pistol was at his head in a moment; the hammer fell, and he rolled dead upon the floor.
Agnes sprang forward to Oberntraut's side; and Valetto sank down into his seat again as pale as death, for the heads of five or six German troopers were seen behind their leader, and the sounds of contention, fierce but short--pistols fired, clashing swords, groans and oaths in Spanish, Italian, and German--were heard from other parts of the house.
"Take that man, and tie him!" said the young baron, speaking to his soldiers. "Two will be enough. The rest go and still that noise! I will come after.--Fear not, fear not, lady! The town is in my hands--you are now quite safe.--Here, sit you down for an instant, and I will rejoin you speedily." As he spoke, he led Agnes gently to a seat, and was then turning away to leave her, when she exclaimed, "Oh! my kind friend--there is--there is--one who needs aid in that room behind, if they have not murdered him.--We were on our way to Heidelberg, when--"
"I will return directly," said Oberntraut, as the sound of another pistol was heard, "fear not--all shall be done that you can desire."
Thus saying, he left her; and Agnes, sitting down, covered her eyes with her hands and wept.
In the mean time the two German soldiers had tied Valetto's arms, and he sat gazing upon the fair girl he had been grossly insulting the moment before, with a look of anxious hesitation.
"Speak to him for me, lady," he said, at length, in Italian, "that incarnate devil will put me to death, if you do not. I know his face too well."
"What do you deserve?" asked Agnes Herbert, raising her eyes for a moment, with a look of reproach; "not for what you have said to me, for that I can forgive, though it was base and cowardly, but for what you have done to those who defended me, and only did their duty to the Prince they serve."
"What is it he has done?" cried Oberntraut, who had overheard the last words as he returned to the room.
"Master Algernon Grey," answered Agnes, with the colour mounting in her pale cheek again, "escorted me hither from Prague, by the Queen's commands. He aided the people to defend the town, and was brought in badly wounded. They tore me away from him when I would have staunched the blood; and I heard that man order him to be put to death."