Dong! Dong! The great alarm bell would suddenly ring out from
the belfry high up upon the Melchior Tower. Dong! Dong! Till the
rooks and daws whirled clamoring and screaming. Dong! Dong! Till
the fierce wolf-hounds in the rocky kennels behind the castle
stables howled dismally in answer. Dong! Dong! - Dong! Dong!

Then would follow a great noise and uproar and hurry in the
castle court-yard below; men shouting and calling to one
another, the ringing of armor, and the clatter of horses' hoofs
upon the hard stone. With the creaking and groaning of the
windlass the iron-pointed portcullis would be slowly raised, and
with a clank and rattle and clash of iron chains the drawbridge
would fall crashing. Then over it would thunder horse and man,
clattering away down the winding, stony pathway, until the great
forest would swallow them, and they would be gone.

Then for a while peace would fall upon the castle courtyard, the
cock would crow, the cook would scold a lazy maid, and Gretchen,
leaning out of a window, would sing a snatch of a song, just as
though it were a peaceful farm-house, instead of a den of
robbers.

Maybe it would be evening before the men would return once more.
Perhaps one would have a bloody cloth bound about his head,
perhaps one would carry his arm in a sling; perhaps one - maybe
more than one - would be left behind, never to return again, and
soon forgotten by all excepting some poor woman who would weep
silently in the loneliness of her daily work.