Our friend's last impression was his falling back, at the moment his dog made a spring at the girl.
The inmates of the house were alarmed. His friends were all sent for.
I arrived among the earliest. What a sight met me!
The members of the household were so stupefied that they had done nothing. Fritz Hartmann lay on the floor insensible:--his night shirt steeped in blood, still flowing from a mortal wound in his breast.
At his feet, moaning bitterly, its fangs and mouth filled with mingled fur and gore, lay the Swiss dog, with two or three deep gashes across the throat. In the adjoining room, thrown near the door, was the instrument of Fritz's death--one of the knives we had used the evening before.
Beside it, lay a woman's cloak, the fur literally dripping with blood.
Fritz lingered for five hours. Before death, he was sensible, and told us what I have stated:--and acknowledged that he had loved the girl, more than her station in life might seem to warrant.
Of course, the young Pole had been concealed in the closet, and heard Leichtberg's sallies. Love and jealousy effected the rest.
We never caught her, although we had all the Vienna police at our beck; and accurate descriptions of her person were forwarded to the frontiers.
We were not quite certain as to her fate, but we rather suppose her to have escaped by a back garden; in which case she must have made a most dangerous leap; and then to have passed as a courier, riding as such into Livonia.