"We are going away. Ah, fine doings there have been! And who knows the end of it all?"
As he helped me to dress, he told me of what had occurred. The gentlemen below had been playing cards when the shrieks of Vogel had sundered the cardplayers like the sword of death.
Rushing upstairs, they had found Marengo guarding the dead body of Vogel, and me standing on the bed screaming. When my father caught me in his arms, I told all. Of Vogel's attempt to smother me, of the knife I had found in my pillow, and of the occurrence in the bell-tower. It must have been my subconscious intelligence speaking, for I remember nothing of it; but it was enough.
"Then," said Joubert, "the General, with you tucked under his left arm, turned on the Baron. 'What is this?' said he. 'Assassination in the Schloss Lichtenberg!'"
"'Liar!' cried the Baron. And before the word was well from his mouth, crack! the General had hit him open-fisted in the face, and the mark sprang up as if the General had hit him red-handed. Mordieu! I never saw a neater blow given, or one so taken, for the Baron never blinked. He just nodded his head, as if to say, 'Yes.' Then he put his arm in Count Hahn's, and the General turned to Major von der Goltz, and, taking him by the arm, followed the others. Then word came to pack up and have you ready, for we are leaving the schloss this night. Now then, vite!"
"But, Joubert, I remember nothing of all that."
"All what?"
"Telling my father of Vogel and the bell."
"Well, whether you remember it or not, there it is."
"And the knife—— Joubert, did you not, you yourself, stick the knife in the pillow?"