the sparks that clung to
his clothes. He was as black as ink from head to foot with the soot from
the chimney.

"So far all is good," he muttered to himself, "but if I go wandering
about in my sooty shoes I will leave black tracks to follow me, so there
is nothing to do but e'en to go barefoot."

He stooped and drawing the pointed soft leather shoes from his feet, he
threw them upon the now blazing fagots, where they writhed and twisted
and wrinkled, and at last burst into a flame. Meanwhile Hans lost no
time; he must find a hiding-place, and quickly, if he would yet hope
to escape. A great bread trough stood in the corner of the kitchen--a
hopper-shaped chest with a flat lid. It was the best hiding place that
the room afforded. Without further thought Hans ran to it, snatching up
from the table as he passed a loaf of black bread and a bottle half full
of stale wine, for he had had nothing to eat since that morning. Into
the great bread trough he climbed, and drawing the lid down upon him,
curled himself up as snugly as a mouse in its nest.

For a while the kitchen lay in silence, but at last the sound of voices
was heard at the door, whispering together in low tones. Suddenly the
door was flung open and a tall, lean, lantern-jawed fellow, clad in
rough frieze, strode into the room and stood there glaring with half
frightened boldness around about him; three or four women and the
trembling scullion crowded together in a frightened group behind him.

The man was Long Jacob, the bowman; but, after all, his boldness was
all wasted, for not a thread or a hair was to be seen, but only the
crackling fire throwing its cheerful ruddy glow upon the wall of the
room, now rapidly darkening in the falling gray of the twilight without.

The fat cook's fright began rapidly to turn into anger.

"Thou imp," she cried, "it is one of thy tricks," and she made a dive
for the scullion, who ducked around the skirts of one of the other women
and so escaped for the time; but Long Jacob wrinkled up his nose and
sniffed. "Nay," said he, "me thinks that there lieth some truth in the
tale that the boy hath told, for here is a vile smell of burned horn
that the black one bath left behind him."

It was the smell from the soft leather shoes that Hans had burned.

The silence of night had fallen over the Castle of Trutz-Drachen; not
a sound was heard but the squeaking of mice scurring behind the
wainscoting, the dull dripping of moisture fro