s apparent he had been watching within. Taking me
by both hands he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me and
was turning to withdraw, when I recognised his purpose, and insisted
that he should come to my rooms. Over a glass of wine I warmly thanked
him and his brave comrades for saving me. He replied simply that he
was more than glad, and that Herr Delbrueck had at the first taken
steps to make all the searching party pleased; at which ambiguous
utterance the maitre d'hotel smiled, while the officer pleaded duty
and withdrew.

'But Herr Delbrueck,' I enquired, 'how and why was it that the soldiers
searched for me?'

He shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation of his own deed, as
he replied:

'I was so fortunate as to obtain leave from the commander of the
regiment in which I served, to ask for volunteers.'

'But how did you know I was lost?' I asked.

'The driver came hither with the remains of his carriage, which had
been upset when the horses ran away.'

'But surely you would not send a search-party of soldiers merely on
this account?'

'Oh, no!' he answered; 'but even before the coachman arrived, I had
this telegram from the Boyar whose guest you are,' and he took from
his pocket a telegram which he handed to me, and I read:

_Bistritz_.

Be careful of my guest--his safety is most precious to me.
Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed, spare nothing
to find him and ensure his safety. He is English and therefore
adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves and
night. Lose not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer
your zeal with my fortune.--_Dracula_.

As I held the telegram in my hand, the room seemed to whirl around me;
and, if the attentive maitre d'hotel had not caught me, I think I
should have fallen. There was something so strange in all this,
something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on me a
sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces--the mere
vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyse me. I was certainly
under some form of mysterious protection. From a distant country had
come, in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of the
danger of the snow-sleep and the jaws of the wolf.

The Judge's House

When the time for his examination drew near Malcolm Malcolmson made up
his mind to go somewhere to read by himself. He f