



Produced by Angus Christian





OTTO OF THE SILVER HAND

By Howard Pyle





CONTENTS

     I.    The Dragon's House,
     II.   How the Baron Went Forth to Shear,
     III.  How the Baron Came Home Shorn,
     IV.   The White Cross on the Hill,
     V.    How Otto Dwelt at St. Michaelsburg,
     VI.   How Otto Lived in the Dragon's House,
     VII.  The Red Cock Crows on Drachenhausen,
     VIII. In the House of the Dragon Scorner,
     IX.   How One-eyed Hans Came to Trutz-Drachen,
     X.    How Hans Brought Terror to the Kitchen,
     XI.   How Otto was Saved,
     XII.  A Ride for Life,
     XIII. How Baron Conrad Held the Bridge,
     XIV.  How Otto Saw the Great Emperor,




FOREWORD.

Between the far away past history of the world, and that which lies near
to us; in the time when the wisdom of the ancient times was dead and
had passed away, and our own days of light had not yet come, there lay a
great black gulf in human history, a gulf of ignorance, of superstition,
of cruelty, and of wickedness.

That time we call the dark or middle ages.

Few records remain to us of that dreadful period in our world's history,
and we only know of it through broken and disjointed fragments that have
been handed down to us through the generations.

Yet, though the world's life then was so wicked and black, there yet
remained a few good men and women here and there (mostly in peaceful
and quiet monasteries, far from the thunder and the glare of the worlds
bloody battle), who knew the right and the truth and lived according to
what they knew; who preserved and tenderly cared for the truths that the
dear Christ taught, and lived and died for in Palestine so long ago.

This tale that I am about to tell is of a little boy who lived and
suffered in those dark middle ages; of how he saw both the good and the
bad of men, and of how, by gentleness and love and not by strife and
hatred, he came at last to stand above other men and to be looked up to
by all. And should you follow the story to the end, I hope you may find
it a pleasure, as I have done, to ramble through those dark ancient
castles, to lie with little Otto and Brother John in the high
belfry-tower, or to sit with them in the peaceful quiet of the sunny
old monastery garden, for, of all the story, I love best those early
peaceful years that little Otto spent in the dear old White Cross on the
Hill.

Poor little Otto's life was a stony and a thorny pathway, and it is well
for all of us nowadays that we walk it in fancy and not in truth.




I. The Dragon's House.

Up from the gray rocks, rising sheer and bold and bare, stood the walls
and towers of Castle Drachenhausen. A great gate-way, with a heavy
iron-pointed portcullis hanging suspended in the dim arch above, yawned
blackly upon the bascule or falling drawbridge that spanned a chasm
between the blank stone walls and the roadway that winding down the
steep rocky <DW72> to the little valley just beneath. There in the lap of
the hills around stood the wretched straw-thatched huts of the peasants
belonging to the castle--miserable serfs who, half timid, half fierce,
tilled their poor patches of ground, wrenching from the hard soil barely
enough to keep body and soul together. Among those vile hovels played
the little children like foxes about their dens, their wild, fierce eyes
peering out from under a mat of tangled yellow hair.

Beyond these squalid huts lay the rushing, foaming river, spanned by a
high, rude, stone bridge where the road from the castle crossed it, and
beyond the river stretched the great, black forest, within whose gloomy
depths the savage wild beasts made their lair, and where in winter time
the howling wolves coursed their flying prey across the moonlit snow and
under the net-work of the black shadows from the naked boughs above.

The watchman in the cold, windy bartizan or watch-tower that clung to
the gray walls above the castle gateway, looked from his narrow window,
where the wind piped and hummed, across the tree-tops that rolled in
endless billows of green, over hill and over valley to the blue and
distant <DW72> of the Keiserberg, where, on the mountain side, glimmered
far away the walls of Castle Trutz-Drachen.

Within the massive stone walls through which the gaping gateway led,
three great cheerless brick buildings, so forbidding that even the
yellow sunlight could not light them into brightness, looked down, with
row upon row of windows, upon three sides of the bleak, stone courtyard.
Back of and above them clustered a jumble of other buildings, tower and
turret, one high-peaked roof overtopping another.

The great house in the centre was the Baron's Hall, the part to the left
was called the Roderhausen; between the two stood a huge square pile,
rising dizzily up into the clear air high above the rest--the great
Melchior Tower.

At the top clustered a jumble of buildings hanging high aloft in the
windy space a crooked wooden belfry, a tall, narrow watch-tower, and a
rude wooden house that clung partly to the roof of the great tower and
partly to the walls.

From the chimney of this crazy hut a thin thread of smoke would now and
then rise into the air, for there were folk living far up in that empty,
airy desert, and oftentimes wild, uncouth little children were seen
playing on the edge of the dizzy height, or sitting with their bare
legs hanging down over the sheer depths, as they gazed below at what was
going on in the court-yard. There they sat, just as little children in
the town might sit upon their father's door-step; and as the sparrows
might fly around the feet of the little town children, so the circling
flocks of rooks and daws flew around the feet of these air-born
creatures.

It was Schwartz Carl and his wife and little ones who lived far up there
in the Melchior Tower, for it overlooked the top of the hill behind the
castle and so down into the valley upon the further side. There, day
after day, Schwartz Carl kept watch upon the gray road that ran like a
ribbon through the valley, from the rich town of Gruenstaldt to the rich
town of Staffenburgen, where passed merchant caravans from the one to
the other--for the lord of Drachenhausen was a robber baron.

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.

Nearly always the adventurers would bring back with them pack-horses
laden with bales of goods. Sometimes, besides these, they would return
with a poor soul, his hands tied behind his back and his feet beneath
the horse's body, his fur cloak and his flat cap wofully awry. A while
he would disappear in some gloomy cell of the dungeon-keep, until an
envoy would come from the town with a fat purse, when his ransom would
be paid, the dungeon would disgorge him, and he would be allowed to go
upon his way again.

One man always rode beside Baron Conrad in his expeditions and
adventures a short, deep-chested, broad-shouldered man, with sinewy arms
so long that when he stood his hands hung nearly to his knees.

His coarse, close-clipped hair came so low upon his brow that only a
strip of forehead showed between it and his bushy, black eyebrows. One
eye was blind; the other twinkled and gleamed like a spark under the
penthouse of his brows. Many folk said that the one-eyed Hans had drunk
beer with the Hill-man, who had given him the strength of ten, for he
could bend an iron spit like a hazel twig, and could lift a barrel of
wine from the floor to his head as easily as though it were a basket of
eggs.

As for the one-eyed Hans he never said that he had not drunk beer with
the Hill-man, for he liked the credit that such reports gave him with
the other folk. And so, like a half savage mastiff, faithful to death
to his master, but to him alone, he went his sullen way and lived his
sullen life within the castle walls, half respected, half feared by the
other inmates, for it was dangerous trifling with the one-eyed Hans.




II. How the Baron went Forth to Shear.

Baron Conrad and Baroness Matilda sat together at their morning meal
below their raised seats stretched the long, heavy wooden table, loaded
with coarse food--black bread, boiled cabbage, bacon, eggs, a great
chine from a wild boar, sausages, such as we eat nowadays, and flagons
and jars of beer and wine, Along the board sat ranged in the order of
the household the followers and retainers. Four or five slatternly women
and girls served the others as they fed noisily at the table, moving
here and there behind the men with wooden or pewter dishes of food, now
and then laughing at the jests that passed or joining in the talk. A
huge fire blazed and crackled and roared in the great open fireplace,
before which were stretched two fierce, shaggy, wolfish-looking hounds.
Outside, the rain beat upon the roof or ran trickling from the eaves,
and every now and then a chill draught of wind would breathe through the
open windows of the great black dining-hall and set the fire roaring.

Along the dull-gray wall of stone hung pieces of armor, and swords and
lances, and great branching antlers of the stag. Overhead arched the
rude, heavy, oaken beams, blackened with age and smoke, and underfoot
was a chill pavement of stone.

Upon Baron Conrad's shoulder leaned the pale, slender, yellow-haired
Baroness, the only one in all the world with whom the fierce lord of
Drachenhausen softened to gentleness, the only one upon whom his savage
brows looked kindly, and to whom his harsh voice softened with love.

The Baroness was talking to her husband in a low voice, as he looked
down into her pale face, with its gentle blue eyes.

"And wilt thou not, then," said she, "do that one thing for me?"

"Nay," he growled, in his deep voice, "I cannot promise thee never more
to attack the towns-people in the valley over yonder. How else could I
live an' I did not take from the fat town hogs to fill our own larder?"

"Nay," said the Baroness, "thou couldst live as some others do, for all
do not rob the burgher folk as thou dost. Alas! mishap will come upon
thee some day, and if thou shouldst be slain, what then would come of
me?"

"Prut," said the Baron, "thy foolish fears" But he laid his rough, hairy
hand softly upon the Baroness' head and stroked her yellow hair.

"For my sake, Conrad," whispered the Baroness.

A pause followed. The Baron sat looking thoughtfully down into the
Baroness' face. A moment more, and he might have promised what she
besought; a moment more, and he might have been saved all the bitter
trouble that was to follow. But it was not to be.

Suddenly a harsh sound broke the quietness of all into a confusion of
noises. Dong! Dong!--it was the great alarm-bell from Melchior's Tower.

The Baron started at the sound. He sat for a moment or two with his hand
clinched upon the arm of his seat as though about to rise, then he sunk
back into his chair again.

All the others had risen tumultuously from the table, and now stood
looking at him, awaiting his orders.

"For my sake, Conrad," said the Baroness again.

Dong! Dong! rang the alarm-bell. The Baron sat with his eyes bent upon
the floor, scowling blackly.

The Baroness took his hand in both of hers. "For my sake," she pleaded,
and the tears filled her blue eyes as she looked up at him, "do not go
this time."

From the courtyard without came the sound of horses' hoofs clashing
against the stone pavement, and those in the hall stood watching and
wondering at this strange delay of the Lord Baron. Just then the door
opened and one came pushing past the rest; it was the one-eyed Hans.
He came straight to where the Baron sat, and, leaning over, whispered
something into his master's ear.

"For my sake," implored the Baroness again; but the scale was turned.
The Baron pushed back his chair heavily and rose to his feet. "Forward!"
he roared, in a voice of thunder, and a great shout went up in answer as
he strode clanking down the hall and out of the open door.

The Baroness covered her face with her hands and wept.

"Never mind, little bird," said old Ursela, the nurse, soothingly; "he
will come back to thee again as he has come back to thee before."

But the poor young Baroness continued weeping with her face buried in
her hands, because he had not done that thing she had asked.

A white young face framed in yellow hair looked out into the courtyard
from a window above; but if Baron Conrad of Drachenhausen saw it from
beneath the bars of his shining helmet, he made no sign.

"Forward," he cried again.

Down thundered the drawbridge, and away they rode with clashing hoofs
and ringing armor through the gray shroud of drilling rain.

The day had passed and the evening had come, and the Baroness and her
women sat beside a roaring fire. All were chattering and talking and
laughing but two--the fair young Baroness and old Ursela; the one sat
listening, listening, listening, the other sat with her chin resting in
the palm of her hand, silently watching her young mistress. The night
was falling gray and chill, when suddenly the clear notes of a bugle
rang from without the castle walls. The young Baroness started, and the
rosy light flashed up into her pale cheeks.

"Yes, good," said old Ursela; "the red fox has come back to his den
again, and I warrant he brings a fat town goose in his mouth; now we'll
have fine clothes to wear, and thou another gold chain to hang about thy
pretty neck."

The young Baroness laughed merrily at the old woman's speech. "This
time," said she, "I will choose a string of pearls like that one my aunt
used to wear, and which I had about my neck when Conrad first saw me."

Minute after minute passed; the Baroness sat nervously playing with a
bracelet of golden beads about her wrist. "How long he stays," said she.

"Yes," said Ursela; "but it is not cousin wish that holds him by the
coat."

As she spoke, a door banged in the passageway without, and the ring of
iron footsteps sounded upon the stone floor. Clank! Clank! Clank!

The Baroness rose to her feet, her face all alight. The door opened;
then the flush of joy faded away and the face grew white, white, white.
One hand clutched the back of the bench whereon she had been sitting,
the other hand pressed tightly against her side.

It was Hans the one-eyed who stood in the doorway, and black trouble sat
on his brow; all were looking at him waiting.

"Conrad," whispered the Baroness, at last. "Where is Conrad? Where is
your master?" and even her lips were white as she spoke.

The one-eyed Hans said nothing.

Just then came the noise of men s voices in the corridor and the shuffle
and scuffle of feet carrying a heavy load. Nearer and nearer they came,
and one-eyed Hans stood aside. Six men came struggling through the
doorway, carrying a litter, and on the litter lay the great Baron
Conrad. The flaming torch thrust into the iron bracket against the wall
flashed up with the draught of air from the open door, and the light
fell upon the white face and the closed eyes, and showed upon his body
armor a great red stain that was not the stain of rust.

Suddenly Ursela cried out in a sharp, shrill voice, "Catch her, she
falls!"

It was the Baroness.

Then the old crone turned fiercely upon the one-eyed Hans. "Thou fool!"
she cried, "why didst thou bring him here? Thou hast killed thy lady!"

"I did not know," said the one-eyed Hans, stupidly.




III. How the Baron came Home Shorn.

But Baron Conrad was not dead. For days he lay upon his hard bed, now
muttering incoherent words beneath his red beard, now raving fiercely
with the fever of his wound. But one day he woke again to the things
about him.

He turned his head first to the one side and then to the other; there
sat Schwartz Carl and the one-eyed Hans. Two or three other retainers
stood by a great window that looked out into the courtyard beneath,
jesting and laughing together in low tones, and one lay upon the heavy
oaken bench that stood along by the wall snoring in his sleep.

"Where is your lady?" said the Baron, presently; "and why is she not
with me at this time?"

The man that lay upon the bench started up at the sound of his voice,
and those at the window came hurrying to his bedside. But Schwartz Carl
and the one-eyed Hans looked at one another, and neither of them spoke.
The Baron saw the look and in it read a certain meaning that brought
him to his elbow, though only to sink back upon his pillow again with a
groan.

"Why do you not answer me?" said he at last, in a hollow voice; then
to the one-eyed Hans, "Hast no tongue, fool, that thou standest gaping
there like a fish? Answer me, where is thy mistress?"

"I--I do not know," stammered poor Hans.

For a while the Baron lay silently looking from one face to the other,
then he spoke again. "How long have I been lying here?" said he.

"A sennight, my lord," said Master Rudolph, the steward, who had come
into the room and who now stood among the others at the bedside.

"A sennight," repeated the Baron, in a low voice, and then to Master
Rudolph, "And has the Baroness been often beside me in that time?"
Master Rudolph hesitated. "Answer me," said the Baron, harshly.

"Not--not often," said Master Rudolph, hesitatingly.

The Baron lay silent for a long time. At last he passed his hands over
his face and held them there for a minute, then of a sudden, before
anyone knew what he was about to do, he rose upon his elbow and then sat
upright upon the bed. The green wound broke out afresh and a dark red
spot grew and spread upon the linen wrappings; his face was drawn and
haggard with the pain of his moving, and his eyes wild and bloodshot.
Great drops of sweat gathered and stood upon his forehead as he sat
there swaying slightly from side to side.

"My shoes," said he, hoarsely.

Master Rudolph stepped forward. "But, my Lord Baron," he began and then
stopped short, for the Baron shot him such a look that his tongue stood
still in his head.

Hans saw that look out of his one eye. Down he dropped upon his knees
and, fumbling under the bed, brought forth a pair of soft leathern
shoes, which he slipped upon the Baron's feet and then laced the thongs
above the instep.

"Your shoulder," said the Baron. He rose slowly to his feet, gripping
Hans in the stress of his agony until the fellow winced again. For a
moment he stood as though gathering strength, then doggedly started
forth upon that quest which he had set upon himself.

At the door he stopped for a moment as though overcome by his weakness,
and there Master Nicholas, his cousin, met him; for the steward had sent
one of the retainers to tell the old man what the Baron was about to do.

"Thou must go back again, Conrad," said Master Nicholas; "thou art not
fit to be abroad."

The Baron answered him never a word, but he glared at him from out of
his bloodshot eyes and ground his teeth together. Then he started forth
again upon his way.

Down the long hall he went, slowly and laboriously, the others following
silently behind him, then up the steep winding stairs, step by step,
now and then stopping to lean against the wall. So he reached a long
and gloomy passageway lit only by the light of a little window at the
further end.

He stopped at the door of one of the rooms that opened into this
passage-way, stood for a moment, then he pushed it open.

No one was within but old Ursela, who sat crooning over a fire with a
bundle upon her knees. She did not see the Baron or know that he was
there.

"Where is your lady?" said he, in a hollow voice.

Then the old nurse looked up with a start. "Jesu bless us," cried she,
and crossed herself.

"Where is your lady?" said the Baron again, in the same hoarse voice;
and then, not waiting for an answer, "Is she dead?"

The old woman looked at him for a minute blinking her watery eyes, and
then suddenly broke into a shrill, long-drawn wail. The Baron needed to
hear no more.

As though in answer to the old woman's cry, a thin piping complaint came
from the bundle in her lap.

At the sound the red blood flashed up into the Baron's face. "What
is that you have there?" said he, pointing to the bundle upon the old
woman's knees.

She drew back the coverings and there lay a poor, weak, little baby,
that once again raised its faint reedy pipe.

"It is your son," said Ursela, "that the dear Baroness left behind her
when the holy angels took her to Paradise. She blessed him and called
him Otto before she left us."




IV. The White Cross on the Hill.

Here the glassy waters of the River Rhine, holding upon its bosom a
mimic picture of the blue sky and white clouds floating above, runs
smoothly around a jutting point of land, St. Michaelsburg, rising from
the reedy banks of the stream, sweeps up with a smooth swell until
it cuts sharp and clear against the sky. Stubby vineyards covered its
earthy breast, and field and garden and orchard crowned its brow, where
lay the Monastery of St. Michaelsburg--"The White Cross on the Hill."
There within the white walls, where the warm yellow sunlight slept, all
was peaceful quietness, broken only now and then by the crowing of
the cock or the clamorous cackle of a hen, the lowing of kine or the
bleating of goats, a solitary voice in prayer, the faint accord of
distant singing, or the resonant toll of the monastery bell from the
high-peaked belfry that overlooked the hill and valley and the smooth,
far-winding stream. No other sounds broke the stillness, for in this
peaceful haven was never heard the clash of armor, the ring of iron-shod
hoofs, or the hoarse call to arms.

All men were not wicked and cruel and fierce in that dark, far-away age;
all were not robbers and terror-spreading tyrants, even in that time
when men's hands were against their neighbors, and war and rapine dwelt
in place of peace and justice.

Abbot Otto, of St. Michaelsburg, was a gentle, patient, pale-faced old
man; his white hands were soft and smooth, and no one would have thought
that they could have known the harsh touch of sword-hilt and lance. And
yet, in the days of the Emperor Frederick--the grandson of the great
Red-beard--no one stood higher in the prowess of arms than he. But all
at once--for why, no man could tell--a change came over him, and in the
flower of his youth and fame and growing power he gave up everything
in life and entered the quiet sanctuary of that white monastery on the
hill-side, so far away from the tumult and the conflict of the world in
which he had lived.

Some said that it was because the lady he had loved had loved his
brother, and that when they were married Otto of Wolbergen had left the
church with a broken heart.

But such stories are old songs that have been sung before.

Clatter! clatter! Jingle! jingle! It was a full-armed knight that came
riding up the steep hill road that wound from left to right and right to
left amid the vineyards on the <DW72>s of St. Michaelsburg. Polished helm
and corselet blazed in the noon sunlight, for no knight in those days
dared to ride the roads except in full armor. In front of him the
solitary knight carried a bundle wrapped in the folds of his coarse gray
cloak.

It was a sorely sick man that rode up the heights of St. Michaelsburg.
His head hung upon his breast through the faintness of weariness and
pain; for it was the Baron Conrad.

He had left his bed of sickness that morning, had saddled his horse in
the gray dawn with his own hands, and had ridden away into the misty
twilight of the forest without the knowledge of anyone excepting the
porter, who, winking and blinking in the bewilderment of his broken
slumber, had opened the gates to the sick man, hardly knowing what he
was doing, until he beheld his master far away, clattering down the
steep bridle-path.

Eight leagues had he ridden that day with neither a stop nor a stay; but
now at last the end of his journey had come, and he drew rein under the
shade of the great wooden gateway of St. Michaelsburg.

He reached up to the knotted rope and gave it a pull, and from within
sounded the answering ring of the porter's bell. By and by a little
wicket opened in the great wooden portals, and the gentle, wrinkled face
of old Brother Benedict, the porter, peeped out at the strange iron-clad
visitor and the great black war-horse, streaked and wet with the sweat
of the journey, flecked and dappled with flakes of foam. A few words
passed between them, and then the little window was closed again; and
within, the shuffling pat of the sandalled feet sounded fainter and
fainter, as Brother Benedict bore the message from Baron Conrad to Abbot
Otto, and the mail-clad figure was left alone, sitting there as silent
as a statue.

By and by the footsteps sounded again; there came a noise of clattering
chains and the rattle of the key in the lock, and the rasping of the
bolts dragged back. Then the gate swung slowly open, and Baron Conrad
rode into the shelter of the White Cross, and as the hoofs of his
war-horse clashed upon the stones of the courtyard within, the wooden
gate swung slowly to behind him.

Abbot Otto stood by the table when Baron Conrad entered the high-vaulted
room from the farther end. The light from the oriel window behind the
old man shed broken rays of light upon him, and seemed to frame his thin
gray hairs with a golden glory. His white, delicate hand rested upon the
table beside him, and upon some sheets of parchment covered with rows of
ancient Greek writing which he had been engaged in deciphering.

Clank! clank! clank! Baron Conrad strode across the stone floor, and
then stopped short in front of the good old man.

"What dost thou seek here, my son?" said the Abbot.

"I seek sanctuary for my son and thy brother's grandson," said the Baron
Conrad, and he flung back the folds of his cloak and showed the face of
the sleeping babe.

For a while the Abbot said nothing, but stood gazing dreamily at
the baby. After a while he looked up. "And the child's mother," said
he--"what hath she to say at this?"

"She hath naught to say," said Baron Conrad, hoarsely, and then stopped
short in his speech. "She is dead," said he, at last, in a husky voice,
"and is with God's angels in paradise."

The Abbot looked intently in the Baron's face. "So!" said he, under his
breath, and then for the first time noticed how white and drawn was the
Baron's face. "Art sick thyself?" he asked.

"Ay," said the Baron, "I have come from death's door. But that is no
matter. Wilt thou take this little babe into sanctuary? My house is a
vile, rough place, and not fit for such as he, and his mother with the
blessed saints in heaven." And once more Conrad of Drachenhausen's face
began twitching with the pain of his thoughts.

"Yes," said the old man, gently, "he shall live here," and he stretched
out his hands and took the babe. "Would," said he, "that all the little
children in these dark times might be thus brought to the house of God,
and there learn mercy and peace, instead of rapine and war."

For a while he stood looking down in silence at the baby in his arms,
but with his mind far away upon other things. At last he roused himself
with a start. "And thou," said he to the Baron Conrad--"hath not thy
heart been chastened and softened by this? Surely thou wilt not go back
to thy old life of rapine and extortion?"

"Nay," said Baron Conrad, gruffly, "I will rob the city swine no longer,
for that was the last thing that my dear one asked of me."

The old Abbot's face lit up with a smile. "I am right glad that thy
heart was softened, and that thou art willing at last to cease from war
and violence."

"Nay," cried the Baron, roughly, "I said nothing of ceasing from war. By
heaven, no! I will have revenge!" And he clashed his iron foot upon the
floor and clinched his fists and ground his teeth together. "Listen,"
said he, "and