I could have bitten my tongue the next moment, but it was too late. My lady looked at me sternly. 'You grow too quick-witted,' she said. 'I have talked too much to you, I see. I am no longer in Heritzburg, but I will be respected, Martin. Go! go at once, and to-morrow be more careful.'

Result--that I had offended her and done no good. I wondered what the Waldgrave would say, and I went to bed with a heart full of fancies and forebodings, that, battening on themselves, grew stronger and more formidable the longer I lay awake. The night was well advanced and the immediate neighbourhood of our quarters was quiet. The sentry's footsteps echoed monotonously as he tramped up and down the wooden platform before them. I could almost hear the breathing of the sleepers in the other rooms, the creak of the floor as one rose or another turned. There was nothing to keep me from sleep.

But my thoughts would not be confined to the four walls or the neighbourhood; my ears lent themselves to every sound that came from the encircling camp, the coarse song chanted by drunken revellers, the oath of anger, the shrill taunt, the cry of surprise. And once, a little before midnight, I heard something more than these: a sudden roar of voices that swelled up and up, louder and fiercer, and then died in a moment into silence--to be followed an instant later by fierce screams of pain--shriek upon shriek of such mortal agony and writhing that I sat up on my pallet, trembling all over and bathed in perspiration; and even the sleepers turned and moaned in their dreams. The cries grew fainter. Then, thank Heaven! silence.

But the incident left me in no better mood for sleep, and with every nerve on the stretch I was turning on the other side for the twentieth time when I fancied I heard whispering outside; a faint muttering as of some one talking to the sentinel. The sentry's step still kept time, however, and I was beginning to think that my imagination had played me a trick, when the creak of a door in the house, followed by a rustling sound, confirmed my suspicions. I rose to my feet. The next instant a low scream and the harsh voice of the watchman told me that something had happened.

I passed out of the house, without alarming any one, and was not surprised to find Jacob pinning a captive against the wall with one hand, while he threatened him with his pike. There was just light enough to see this, and no more, the wide eaves casting a black shadow on the prisoner's face.

'What is it, Jacob?' I said, going to his assistance. 'Whom have you got?'

'I do not know,' he answered sturdily, 'but I'll keep him. He was trying to get in or out. Steady now,' he added gruffly to his captive, 'or I will spoil your beauty for you!'

'In or out?' I said.

'Ay, I think he was coming out.'

There was a fire burning in the road a score of paces away. I ran to it and fetched a brand, and blowing the smouldering wood into a blaze, threw the light on the fellow's face. Jacob dropped his hand with a cry of surprise, and I recoiled. His prisoner was a woman--Marie Wort.