, and then as the distance grew
greater took it in her mouth and so followed. After a while, however,
she abandoned this, for we saw her following all alone; she had
evidently hidden the body somewhere. Amelia's alarm grew at the cat's
persistence, and more than once she repeated her warning; but the
American always laughed with amusement, till finally, seeing that she
was beginning to be worried, he said:

'I say, ma'am, you needn't be skeered over that cat. I go heeled, I
du!' Here he slapped his pistol pocket at the back of his lumbar
region. 'Why sooner'n have you worried, I'll shoot the critter, right
here, an' risk the police interferin' with a citizen of the United
States for carryin' arms contrairy to reg'lations!' As he spoke he
looked over the wall, but the cat on seeing him, retreated, with a
growl, into a bed of tall flowers, and was hidden. He went on: 'Blest
if that ar critter ain't got more sense of what's good for her than
most Christians. I guess we've seen the last of her! You bet, she'll
go back now to that busted kitten and have a private funeral of it,
all to herself!'

Amelia did not like to say more, lest he might, in mistaken kindness
to her, fulfil his threat of shooting the cat: and so we went on and
crossed the little wooden bridge leading to the gateway whence ran the
steep paved roadway between the Burg and the pentagonal Torture Tower.
As we crossed the bridge we saw the cat again down below us. When she
saw us her fury seemed to return, and she made frantic efforts to get
up the steep wall. Hutcheson laughed as he looked down at her, and
said:

'Goodbye, old girl. Sorry I injured your feelin's, but you'll get over
it in time! So long!' And then we passed through the long, dim archway
and came to the gate of the Burg.

When we came out again after our survey of this most beautiful old
place which not even the well-intentioned efforts of the Gothic
restorers of forty years ago have been able to spoil--though their
restoration was then glaring white--we seemed to have quite forgotten
the unpleasant episode of the morning. The old lime tree with its
great trunk gnarled with the passing of nearly nine centuries, the
deep well cut through the heart of the rock by those captives of old,
and the lovely view from the city wall whence we heard, spread over
almost a full quarter of an hour, the multitudinous chimes of the
city, had all helped to wipe out from our minds the incident of the
slain