them.

"Yonder is the place, Lord Baron," said one of those who stood with him.
"I have scanned every foot of the wall at night for a week past. An we
get not in by that way, we get not in at all. A keen eye, a true aim,
and a bold man are all that we need, and the business is done." Here
again all looked upward at the gray wall above them, rising up in the
silent night air.

High aloft hung the wooden bartizan or watch-tower, clinging to the face
of the outer wall and looming black against the pale sky above. Three
great beams pierced the wall, and upon them the wooden tower rested. The
middle beam jutted out beyond the rest to the distance of five or six
feet, and the end of it was carved into the rude semblance of a dragon's
head.

"So, good," said the Baron at last; "then let us see if thy plan holds,
and if Hans Schmidt's aim is true enough to earn the three marks that I
have promised him. Where is the bag?"

One of those who stood near handed the Baron a leathern pouch, the Baron
opened it and drew out a ball of fine thread, another of twine, a coil
of stout rope, and a great bundle that looked, until it was unrolled,
like a coarse fish-net. It was a rope ladder. While these were being
made ready, Hans Schmidt, a thick-set, low-browed, broad-shouldered
archer, strung his stout bow, and carefully choosing three arrows
from those in his quiver, he stuck them point downward in the earth.
Unwinding the ball of thread, he laid it loosely in large loops upon the
ground so that it might run easily without hitching, then he tied the
end of the thread tightly around one of his arrows. He fitted the arrow
to the bow and drew the feather to his ear. Twang! rang the bowstring,
and the feathered messenger flew whistling upon its errand to the
watch-tower. The very first shaft did the work.

"Good," said Hans Schmidt, the archer, in his heavy voice, "the three
marks are mine, Lord Baron."

The arrow had fallen over and across the jutting beam between the carved
dragon's head and the bartizan, carrying with it the thread, which now
hung from above, glimmering white in the moonlight like a cobweb.

The rest was an easy task enough. First the twine was drawn up to and
over the beam by the thread, then the rope was drawn up by the twine,
and last of all the rope ladder by the rope. There it hung like a thin,
slender black line against the silent gray walls.

"And now," said the Baron, "who will go first and win fifty marks