party wheeled their horses from the gate and rode back toward

Blentz. As the sound of the iron-shod hoofs diminished in the

distance, with them diminished the hopes of the king.

When they ceased entirely his hopes were at an end, to be supplanted

by renewed terror at the turning of the knob of his prison door as

it swung open to admit Maenck and a squad of soldiers.

"Come!" ordered the captain. "The king has refused to intercede in

your behalf. When he returns with his army he will find your body at

the foot of the west wall in the courtyard."

With an ear-piercing shriek that rang through the grim old castle,

Leopold of Lutha flung his arms above his head and lunged forward

upon his face. Roughly the soldiers seized the unconscious man and

dragged him from the room.

Along the corridor they hauled him and down the winding stairs

within the north tower to the narrow slit of a door that opened upon

the courtyard. To the foot of the west wall they brought him,

tossing him brutally to the stone flagging. Here one of the soldiers

brought a flagon of water and dashed it in the face of the king. The

cold douche returned Leopold to a consciousness of the nearness of

his impending fate.

He saw the little squad of soldiers before him. He saw the cold,

gray wall behind, and, above, the cold, gray sky of early dawn. The

dismal men leaning upon their shadowy guns seemed unearthly specters

in the weird light of the hour that is neither God's day nor devil's

night. With difficulty two of them dragged Leopold to his feet.

Then the dismal men formed in line before him at the opposite side

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