lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher’s cleaver in the other. I

rushed across the bedroom, flung open the window, and looked out. How quiet and

sweet and wholesome the garden looked in the moonlight, and it could not be

more than thirty feet down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to

jump until I should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian

who pursued me. If she were ill-used, then at any risks I was determined to go

back to her assistance. The thought had hardly flashed through my mind before

he was at the door, pushing his way past her; but she threw her arms round him

and tried to hold him back.


“‘Fritz! Fritz!’ she cried in English, ‘remember

your promise after the last time. You said it should not be again. He will be

silent! Oh, he will be silent!’


“‘You are mad, Elise!’ he shouted, struggling to break

away from her. ‘You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me

pass, I say!’ He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the window, cut

at me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and was hanging by the hands

to the sill, when his blow fell. I was conscious of a dull pain, my grip

loosened, and I fell into the garden below.


“I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and rushed

off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood that I was far

from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, however, as I ran, a deadly dizziness

and sickness came over me. I glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing

painfully, and then, for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off and

that the blood was pouring from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief

round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in

a dead faint among the rose-bushes.


“How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been a very

long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was breaking when I came