ared a gray line of leather jerkin and a
thinner white line of neck. The Red Axe swung. I bethought me that it was
a bad light to cut off calves' heads in. But the Red Axe made no mistake.
I had learned my trade. There was not even a groan--only a dull thud
some way underneath, such as you may hear when the children of the
quarter play football on the streets.

Then the foremost of the assailants were blocked by the fallen body, and
the feet of the men behind were stayed as the strange round plaything
rebounded among them.

"Back!" they cried, who were in front.

"Forward!" replied those who were hindmost and knew nothing.

"Come, men--on and finish it!" cried the voice which had commanded the
powder-flask and the tree--the voice I now knew to be that of Duke
Otho himself.

But the kick-ball argument of the Red Axe was mightily discouraging to
those immediately concerned, and as I felt the muscles of my right arm
and waited, I could hear Otho reasoning, threatening, coaxing, all in
vain. Then his tones mounted steadily into hot anger. He reviled his
followers for dogs, cowards, curs who had eaten his bread and now would
not rid him of his enemies.

"A thousand rix-dollars to the man who kills Hugo Gottfried!" he shouted.
"But, hear ye, save the girl alive!"

Yet not a man would attempt the first hazard of the stair.

"Knaves, traitors, curs!" he cried; "would that there were so much as a
single true man among you--but there is not one worth spitting upon!"

"Cur yourself!" growled a man, somewhere in the dark--"you have most at
stake in this. Try the stair yourself if you are so keen. We will follow
fast enough!"

"God strike me dead if I do not!" shouted Otho; "if it were only to shame
you cowards."

He paused to prepare his weapons.

"Follow me, men!" he shouted again; "all together!"

Again there was the clatter of iron-shod feet on the stone steps
beneath me.

My grip on the Red Axe became like iron, but my joints were loose and
swung easily as a flail swings on well-seasoned leathers.

"Welcome, Otho von Reuss!" I cried; "ye could not be crowned without the
death of Helene my wife! Come up hither and I will crown thee once for
all with the iron crown."

There, at last, was mine enemy at the turn of the stair, rushing
furiously upon me, sword in hand.

"Traitor!" he cried, and his sword was almost at my breast, so
fast he came.

"Murderer!" I shouted.

And almost ere I was aware the Red Axe