re.

"Oppressors of the people, ye come to your reward!" cried many voices.

"We will give you your last breakfast--of cold, tempered steel!" cried
another, from the bowels of the crowd.

"To the Wolfsberg--ho! Break in the doors! We will have our Saint Helena
forth of their cursed prisons!"

It was no sooner said than done. Like a wave the people rushed in a black
irregular mass at the front rank of the guard. The soldiers of the Duke
were swept away like chaff; I could see one here and another there
struggling in the vortices of the angry multitude.

"On to the Wolfsberg!" cried the crowd.

But when the first of them reached the castle gates, lo! they stood open,
and there behind them stood file on file of matchlock men with their
matches burning in their hands and their pieces trained upon their rests.

"Give them the fire!" cried a voice, that of Duke Otho, as the crowd
halted a moment irresolute.

The bright red flame started out here and there from muzzle and
touchhole, and then ran along the line in an irregular volley.

A terrible cry of fear went up from the folk. For though they had heard
of the new ordnance, and even seen one or two, they had never realized
the effect of a fusillade. And when a man on either side sank down with a
hollow sound like a beast in shamble-thills, and the man in front fell
over on his face without a sound, the multitude turned, broke into
groups, fled, and disappeared in a moment like a whirl of snow which the
wind canters down the street in a veering flurry.

Then the gates shut to, and the deep lines of matchlock men were hidden
from view. After this the city thrilled and murmured worse than ever,
humming like an angry hive. But the Wolfsberg kept its counsel. Not yet
had deliverance arrived for the captives within its cells.

And the dread morning was coming fast.

At last, wearied out with crowding emotions, I went and cast me down on
my bed, and, instantly falling asleep, I slept like a log till one
touched me on the shoulder. Looking up, I saw the Duke Otho. He had come
to make sure of his vengeance--the vengeance which I knew well was not
his, but that of Ysolinde, Princess of Plassenburg.

CHAPTER LII

THE HEADSMAN'S RIGHT

"Rise, Justicer of the Wolfmark!" said Otho, smiling mockingly upon me
like a fiend.

I started up and gazed about bewildered as the coming terrors of the
morning broke upon me.

"'Tis scarcely an hour to sunrise," he continue