and thy neck? Stand up while the
Judges and the new Duke go by!"

So, dazed and numb, I hent me up, and lo! coming arm in arm towards me
were Otho von Reuss and his newly appointed Chief Justice and
assessor--who but mine old friend Michael Texel! The Duke bent a
searching look on me as I bowed low before him, but he saw only the tan
of my skin and the close bristle of my hair. And so all passed on.

"Ho, blackamoor, thy master waits thee! Run, if thou wouldst avoid the
whipping-post!" cried another of the rout of servitors, with a small
sniggering laugh.

So, putting out a hand to stay myself, I staggered weakly after my
master. I found him at the door, in talk with the confessor of the
Bishop.

"And so," he was saying, "this girl was reared in the executioner's
house. And she went away to a far country in order to learn the secrets
of necromancy, it is not known where. I would see this Duke's Justicer.
Does he dwell near by? What! In that very tower? It is of good omen. Let
us go in thither."

But the confessor excused himself, being in no wise desirous to visit the
Red Axe, even in his time of sickness.

"I have business of the soul with Bishop Peter. I will speak with thee
again at refection," he said, twitching his head up at the Red Tower with
suspicious glances, as if he feared unseen ears might be listening, and
that some of its fearful magic might even descend upon a man so notably
holy as a Bishop's confessor.

Presently Dessauer and I were across the court-yard at the well-known
door. I knocked, and listened, whereupon ensued silence. Again and yet
again I made the quaint death's-head knocker thunder, and then, when the
echoes ceased, there was once more a great silence in the tower.

I heard the blood-hounds of Duke Casimir howl. The indigo shadow of the
pinnacled Hall of Justice stretched across and touched the Red Tower with
an ominous finger.

"Let us go in," said I. And, pushing the unresisting door, I began to
climb the stone stairs. Each smoothed hollow and chipped edge was
familiar to me as my name. Indeed, much more so, for I was now passing
under a false one. So I climbed, in a dazed way, up and up. There on my
left was the sitting-room. It had been searched high and low, escritoires
rudely tossed down, aumries rifled, household stuff, grain, white linen,
empty bottles, all cast about and huddled together even as the searchers
had left them.

Then above was the little room where Helene