craft and potions.

"Cunningly and with subtlety was spread the report how my daughter and I
had worked upon Duke Casimir. How he had gone to our house, drunken a
draught, and then died ere he could come to his own chamber. But as for
me, I went on my way and heeded them not. For just then the plague, which
had stricken the Duke first, stalked athwart the city unchecked, and all
through it this Helene of ours was as the angel of God, coming and going
by night and day among the streets and lanes of the town. And the common
folk almost worshipped her. And so do unto this day.

"Now perhaps I did not heed this babble as I ought to have done. But
there came one night--how long ago I have forgotten--and with it a clamor
in the court-yard. The Black Riders, the worst of them, fiends incarnate
that Otho had of late gathered about him, thundered upon us without, and
presently burst in the door.

"I met them with mine axe at the stair-head, and for the better part of
an hour I kept them at a distance. And some died and some were
dismembered. For at that business I am not a man to make mistakes. Then
came Otho limping from his fall and shot me with a bolt from behind his
men. And so over my body as I lay at the stair-head they took my love and
left me here to die. And the new Duke will not kill me, for he desires
that I shall see her agony ere my own life is taken. For that alone the
fiend keeps me in life!

"And that," said my father, feebly, "is all."

But just as he seemed to ebb away a wild fear startled him.

"No," he cried, "there is yet something more. Hugo, Hugo, keep me here a
little! Hold me that my mind may not wander away among the racking-wheels
and the faces mopping and mowing. I have something yet to tell."

I held him up while Dessauer poured a drop or two of the potent liquid
into his mouth. As before, it instantly revived him. The color came back
to his cheeks.

"Quick, Hugo, lad!" he cried; "give me that black box which sits behind
the block." I brought it, and from this he extracted a small key, which
he gave me.

"Unlock the panel you see there in the wall," he said.

I looked, but could find none.

"The oaken knob!" he cried, sharply, as to a clumsy servitor.

I could only see a rough knob in the wood-work, a little worm-eaten, and
in the centre one hole a little larger than the rest.

"Put in the key!" commanded my father, making as if he would come out of
bed and hasten me himself.

I thru