end of the gallery.
Like a shadow the black figure slipped behind one of these, flattening
itself up against the wall, where it stood straight and motionless as
the shadows around it.

Down the long gallery came the watchman, his sword clinking loudly in
the silence as he walked, tramp, tramp, tramp! clink, clank, jingle.

Within three feet of the motionless figure behind the pillar he turned,
and began retracing his monotonous steps. Instantly the other left the
shadow of the post and crept rapidly and stealthily after him. One step,
two steps the sentinel took; for a moment the black figure behind him
seemed to crouch and draw together, then like a flash it leaped forward
upon its victim.

A shadowy cloth fell upon the man's face, and in an instant he was flung
back and down with a muffled crash upon the stones. Then followed a
fierce and silent struggle in the darkness, but strong and sturdy as the
man was, he was no match for the almost superhuman strength of One-eyed
Hans. The cloth which he had flung over his head was tied tightly and
securely. Then the man was forced upon his face and, in spite of his
fierce struggles, his arms were bound around and around with strong fine
cord; next his feet were bound in the same way, and the task was done.
Then Hans stood upon his feet, and wiped the sweat from his swarthy
forehead. "Listen, brother," he whispered, and as he spoke he stooped
and pressed something cold and hard against the neck of the other.
"Dost thou know the feel of this? It is a broad dagger, and if thou
dost contrive to loose that gag from thy mouth and makest any outcry, it
shall be sheathed in thy weasand."

So saying, he thrust the knife back again into its sheath, then stooping
and picking up the other, he flung him across his shoulder like a sack,
and running down the steps as lightly as though his load was nothing at
all, he carried his burden to the arched doorway whence he had come a
little while before. There, having first stripped his prisoner of
all his weapons, Hans sat the man up in the angle of the wall. "So,
brother;" said he, "now we can talk with more ease than we could up
yonder. I will tell thee frankly why I am here; it is to find where the
young Baron Otto of Drachenhausen is kept. If thou canst tell me,
well and good; if not, I must e'en cut thy weasand and find me one who
knoweth more. Now, canst thou tell me what I would learn, brother?"

The other nodded dimly in the darkness