uch a terrible look upon the trembling hostages, as
they listened to this news, that two of them could not endure to wait
till the end, but then and there killed themselves by dashing their
heads against the stony walls which surrounded them.

When the Goths from Rome had sworn to the truth of their story, the
King silently turned away and left the garden. An hour after, the heads
of the three hundred hostages stared ghastly down from the summit of
the walls.

"It was not alone to fulfil this terrible judgment that I came here,"
Teja said to Adalgoth: "I have also to reveal a sacred secret."

And he invited him and the other leaders of the troops to a solemn and
joyless midnight banquet. When the sad feast was over, the King made a
sign to old Hildebrand, who nodded, and took a dimly burning torch from
the iron ring into which it was stuck on the centre column of the
vaulted hall, saying:

"Follow me, children of these latter days, and take your shields with
you."

It was the third hour of the July night; the stars glittered in the
sky. Out of the hall, silently following the King and the aged
master-at-arms, there stepped Guntharis and Adalgoth, Aligern, Grippa,
Ragnaris, and Wisand the standard-bearer. Wachis, the King's
shield-bearer, closed the procession, carrying a second torch.

Opposite the castle garden rose an ancient round tower, named the Tower
of Theodoric, because that great King had restored it. Old Hildebrand
was the first to enter this tower with his torch, but instead of
leaving the ground-floor, which contained only the empty tower-room,
the old man halted, knelt down, and carefully measured fifteen spans of
his large hand from the door, which he had closed behind them, to the
centre of the room. The whole floor seemed to be composed of three
colossal slabs of granite. When Hildebrand had measured the fifteen
spans, he held his thumb upon the spot at which he had arrived, and
struck his battle-axe against the floor; it sounded hollow. Boring the
point of his axe into a scarcely-visible crack in the stone, he signed
to his companions to stand aside on his left; when they had done so, he
pushed a portion of the slab to the right. A chasm, as deep as the
tower was high above them, revealed itself to the astonished eyes of
those present.

The opening was only large enough to admit one man at a time. It led to
a narrow flight of more than two hundred steps, hewn in the living
rock.

Silently, at