looming black in the night, while the car moved off into the darkness.

The gate was open. Half a dozen yards from it was a small, slender tower
with a pointed roof jutting out from the corner of the building. In the
tower was a door which yielded easily to my companion's vigorous push as
a clock somewhere within the building beat a double stroke--half-past
ten.

The door led into a little vestibule brilliantly lit with electric
light. There a man was waiting, a fine, upstanding bearded fellow in a
kind of green hunting costume.

"So, Payer!" said the young Uhlan. "Here is the gentleman. I shall be at
the west entrance afterwards. You will bring him down yourself to the
car."

"Jawohl, Herr Graf!" answered the man in green, and the lieutenant
vanished through the door into the night.

A terrifying, an incredible suspicion that had overwhelmed me directly I
stepped out of the car now came surging through my brain. That vast,
black edifice, that slender tower at the corner--did I not know them?

Mechanically, I followed the man in green. My suspicions deepened
with every step. In a little, they became certainty. Up a shallow and
winding stair, along a long and broad corridor, hung with rich
tapestries, the polished parquet glistening faintly in the dim light,
through splendid suites of gilded apartments with old pictures and
splendid furniture... here a lackey with powdered hair yawning on a
landing, there a sentry in field-grey immobile before a door...I was in