ce russet-tan blood-hounds,
ravined for their fearsome food. And in these days there was plenty of
it, too, so that they were yelling and clamoring all day, and most of
the night, for that which it made me sweat to think of. And beneath the
rebellious city cowered and muttered, while the burghers and their
wives shivered in their beds as the howling of Duke Casimir's
blood-hounds came fitfully down the wind, and Duke Casimir's guards
clashed arms under their windows.

So this night I looked down contentedly enough from my perched eyrie on
the top of the Red Tower. It had been snowing a little earlier in the
evening, and the brief blast had swept the sky clean, so that even the
brightest stars seemed sunken and waterlogged in the white floods of
moonlight. Under my hand lay the city. Even the feet of the watch made no
clatter on the pavements. The fresh-fallen snow masked the sound. The
kennels of the blood-hounds were silent, for their dreadful tenants were
abroad that night on the Duke's work.

Yet, sitting up there on the Wolfsberg, it seemed to me that I could
distinguish a muttering as of voices full of hate, like men talking low
on their beds the secret things of evil and treason. I discerned
discontent and rebellion rumbling and brooding over the city that clear,
keen night of early winter.

Then, when after a while I turned from the crowded roofs and looked down
upon the gray, far-spreading plain of the Wolfmark, to the east I saw
that which appeared like winking sparks of light moving among the black
clumps of copse and woodland which fringed the river. These wimpled and
scattered, and presently grew brighter. A long howl, like that of a
lonely wolf on the waste when he calls to his kindred to tell him their
where-abouts, came faintly up to my ears.

A hound gave tongue responsively among the heaped mews and doggeries
beneath the ramparts. Lights shone in windows athwart the city. Red
nightcaps were thrust out of hastily opened casements. The Duke's
standing guard clamored with their spear-butts on the uneven pavements,
crying up and down the streets: "To your kennels, devil's brats, Duke
Casimir comes riding home!"

Then I tell you my small heart beat furiously. For I knew that if I
only kept quiet I should see that which I had never yet seen--the
home-coming of our famous foraying Duke. I had, indeed, seen Duke
Casimir often enough in the castle, or striding across the court-yard
to speak to my father, f