ned within by an iron bar lying in sockets
across it; with an interest that was almost idle she saw how these
sockets, one by one, were yielding and let the bar go loose. One
broke off with a sharp crack, and sent the rest of the Jews racing to
the dark doorways. Truda loosened her cloak and let it fall about her
feet, and stood up alone, vivid in the dancing light of the burning
house, in saffron and white. She moved deliberate hands over her hair
and patted a loose strand into its place. Another rending crash; she
set her hand on her hip and stood still. The door yielded and sprang
back. There was a raw yell, and the mob was in.

Prince Sarasin was again in his box when Monsieur Vaucher, broken in
spirit and looking bleak and old, came before the curtain to announce
that owing to circumstances--unforeseen circumstances--of a--a
peculiar nature, Madame Schottelius would be unable to appear that
night, and her place would be taken, etc. The announcement was not
well received, and nobody was less pleased than the Prince. He knit
his heavy brows in a scowl as poor Vaucher sidled back to obscurity,
and thought rapidly. His thoughts, and what he knew of the night's
programme in the Jewish quarter of his city, carried him round to the
stage door, with his surprised aide-de-camp at his heels.

Monsieur Vaucher, tearful and impotent, was at his service.

"Never before has she played me such a trick," he lamented. "Ill!
Why, I have known her go on and make a success when she was ill
enough to keep another woman in bed. It is a trick; she is not even
at the hotel. No one knows where she is."

The Governor, his last interview with Truda fresh in his
recollection, asked curt questions. He was a man of direct mind. In
less time than one might have supposed from the condition of poor
Vaucher, he had elicited some outstanding facts--the note which Truda
had sent to the Jewish quarter among them. The keeper of the stage-
door added the little he knew. Prince Sarasin turned to his aide.

"Dragoons," he ordered. "Half a squadron. I shall be at the barracks
in ten minutes, when they must be ready. Go at once."

The aide-de-camp, who knew the Prince, recognized that this was an
occasion for speed. When the Prince, mounted, arrived at the
barracks, the dragoons were drawn up-awaiting him. He moved them off
towards the Jewish quarter at the trot. The streets echoed their
hoof-beats, and little time elapsed before they were on the skir