"What is that?" said Felix. "That sounds altogether too serious for any masquerading joke. In the tropics I was used to such nocturnal voices, and slept quietly in spite of them. But here, under this wintry sky--"
He hurried her toward the house. Then they saw a back-door suddenly thrown open, and two muffled figures rush out hastily and run toward a carriage that was standing waiting in the side-street, about thirty steps from the house, just as on the night when the burning picture disappeared.
They could distinguish nothing but the outline of a monk's cowl.
"Rosenbusch!" cried Felix.
But this call merely had the effect of causing the fleeing persons to redouble their speed. The next moment they reached the carriage, and something white gleamed in the darkness, which Felix's keen eye thought it recognized as the fustanella of the young Greek; then the door was slammed-to, and the carriage rolled off into the darkness at a break-neck pace.
The pair gazed after it in amazement.
"What can it mean?" cried Irene.
Felix said nothing, but shook his head and hurried her on toward the door. They found Fridolin at his post, but with eyes that glared so from fright and sudden awakening that they did not stop to ask him any questions, but, throwing off their wet wraps, hastened into the hall.
Here a most startling sight greeted their view.
Jansen was crouched motionless on the floor, holding on his knee the bloody head of the dog, his gaze fixed on the stiff, outstretched limbs of his old friend, whose convulsive twitching marked the last pulsation of his ebbing blood.