g been unoccupied?"

The old man was silent, but the woman, gathering confidence, took up the
story.

"It was always a place of mystery--even in the days of Baron Neudeck,
who was an evil man. The servants were strangers to our people and spoke
not at all. They never came into the valley."

"And they did not come for food--for milk, eggs, butter?"

"Szolnok farm was above the Schloss upon the mountain side. They had
what they needed."

"Ah, I understand. And since the death of the Baron?"

"We do not know. We do not go there. Two years ago a young man from
this village went there seeking a sheep which had gone astray. He never
came back. And the sheep skin was found some days later at the foot of
the precipice. And scarcely a month ago, a venturesome young man from
Bartfa climbed the road to the castle in the dead of night on a wager.
What he saw no one will ever know, for he came running down the road to
his companion stricken with terror, and has never spoken of the matter
from that day to this. It was a ghost he saw, they say----"

"Or a devil," put in the old man.

"And by day? You see no one?"

"The Schloss is well within the gorge. I do not go to look, my friend."

"Have there been no lights at night for three years?"

"None that I remember--until now."

"Then it is only for a month or more that they have been seen?"

"Perhaps. I do not know."

The man was growing reticent and his family followed his example. The
character of the occupants of Szolnok was not a popular topic for
conversation in Dukla Valley. But this man could help Renwick, and he
determined to use him. And so as the woman bade him good night and went
upstairs, Renwick rose and went to the door, where the old man followed
him.

"It is late, my friend," he said, "and a weary walk for me to Bartfa. I
will pay you well for a bed."

"Willingly, if we but had the room----"

"Or a pallet of straw in your stable. I am not fastidious."

"Ah, as to that, of course. It can be managed." Renwick took out a
hundred-_kroner_ note, and held it before the man's eyes.

"If you will do as I ask I will give you this."

"And what is that?"

"A place in your stable tonight--breakfast at three in the morning, and
the clothing you now stand in----"

"My clothing?"

"No questions asked, and silence. Do you agree?"

"But I do not understand."

"It is not necessary that you should. I shall do you no harm."

"A hundred _kroner_--it is a larg