That night Schwartz Carl had been bousing it over a pot of
yellow wine in the pantry with his old crony, Master Rudolph,
the steward; and the two, chatting and gossiping together, had
passed the time away until long after the rest of the castle had
been wrapped in sleep. Then, perhaps a little unsteady upon his
feet, Schwartz Carl betook himself homeward to the Melchior
tower.

He stood for a while in the shadow of the doorway, gazing up
into the pale sky above him at the great, bright, round moon,
that hung like a bubble above the sharp peaks of the roofs
standing black as ink against the sky. But all of a sudden he
started up from the post against which he had been leaning, and
with head bent to one side, stood listening breathlessly, for he
too had heard that smothered cry from the watch-tower. So he
stood intently, motionlessly, listening, listening; but all was
silent except for the monotonous dripping of water in one of the
nooks of the court-yard, and the distant murmur of the river
borne upon the breath of the night air. "Mayhap I was mistaken,"
muttered Schwartz Carl to himself.

But the next moment the silence was broken again by a faint,
shrill whistle; what did it mean?

Back of the heavy oaken door of the tower was Schwartz Carl's
cross-bow, the portable windlass with which the bowstring was
drawn back, and a pouch of bolts. Schwartz Carl reached back
into the darkness, fumbling in the gloom until his fingers met
the weapon. Setting his foot in the iron stirrup at the end of
the stock, he wound the stout bow-string into the notch of the