e would find Lannes and together in some way they would rescue Julie,
Julie so young and so beautiful, held in the castle of the medieval
baron. In the lowering shadows the house became a castle and Auersperg
had always been of the Middle Ages.

The wind freshened and a few drops of rain struck his face. He stood
boldly erect now, unafraid of observation, and picked a way through the
mass of broken glass and overturned shrubbery toward the end of the
conservatory, seeing beyond it a gleam of water which must be the big
fishpond.

He turned to the left and reached the edge of the pond just as four
figures stepped from the dusk, their raised rifles pointing at him. The
shock was so great that, driven by some unknown but saving impulse, he
threw himself forward into the water just as the soldiers fired. He
heard the four rifles roaring together. Then he swam below water to the
far edge of the pond and came up under the shelter of its circling
shrubbery, raising above its surface only enough of his face for breath.

As his eyes cleared he saw the four soldiers standing at the far edge of
the pond, looking at the water. Doubtless they were waiting for his
body to reappear, as his action, half fall, half spring, and the roaring
of the rifles had been so close together that they seemed a blended
movement.

He was trembling all over from intense nervous exertion and excitement,
but his mind steadied enough for him to observe the soldiers.
Undoubtedly they were talking together, as he saw them making the
gestures of men who speak, but, even had he heard them, he could not
have understood their German. They were watching for his body, and as it
did not reappear they might make the circle of the pond looking for it.
He intended, in such an event, to leap out and run, but the elements
were intereceding in his favor. Thunder now preponderated greatly in
that rumble on the western horizon, and a blaze of yellow lightning
played across the surface of the pond. It was followed by a rush of rain
and the soldiers turned back toward the house, evidently sure that they
had not missed.

John drew himself out of the water and climbed up the bank. His knees
gave way under him and he sank to the ground. Excitement and emotion had
been so violent that he was robbed of strength, but the condition lasted
only a minute or two. Then he rose and began to pick a way.

The rain was driving hard, and it had grown so dark that one could not
see f