CHAPTER XXVIII. The Sacrifice of Blood. An hour had passed, the fight had proved shorter and less serious than had been apprehended. The enemy, proceeding from the forest and gathering in small numbers at the grotto, had intended to surprise the castle in which the German officers were quartered, and by capturing them to leave the force in the village without leaders, and an easy prey to the attack of their main body. Frederic's cry of alarm had broken up their plan of moving on in perfect silence to the castle, and the hand-to-hand fight in the grotto had been of short duration. A few French fusileers had fallen, half a dozen had been taken prisoners, and the others had fled in wild disorder to the forest. By this movement the secret way of egress had been discovered and guarded. A few of the Germans were more or less seriously wounded; none mortally but Frederic, who was to be the only sacrifice. They had borne him to Jane's chamber and laid him on her bed. She sat at his side. She had represented her own wound as a very trifling one, which had certainly made flight impossible to her, but was not at all dangerous. Doctor Behrend bandaged the foot but avoided any further treatment, he saw that she was in no mood to heed so slight a wound. Atkins stood at a window of the apartment and gazed in silence at the group. Jane had hastily told him all, and every trace of the old, mocking irony had vanished from his features; the deepest gravity alone spoke from them now. There lay the man they had so long and anxiously sought, for whose discovery his parent's wealth had been sacrificed, whom his sister had followed over the sea, through the whole Fatherland, even to this place. For weeks long he had been so near to them, and they had both so haughtily looked down upon him; they had wounded the poor fellow by their pride and scorn, they had derided his small abilities and his simple ways. There had fallen to his share none of those rich treasures of knowledge and culture which had been so lavished upon his sister; poor and ignorant, in wretched servitude, he had grown up, and had been thrown upon the cold charities of the world, this heir of countless thousands; and now, the hour that at last revealed the truth, that restored to him riches and a future--was to be but the hour of his death. Doctor Behrend, to whom Atkins had briefly revealed all this, could give no hope. The wound was undeniably mortal; perhaps it might not have been, if Frederic, immediately upon receiving the ball, had taken refuge in the shrubbery. The terrible effort through which he had carried Jane that long distance, had proved fatal; an internal hemorrhage had ensued, and he had only a short time to live. The wounded man had been lying in a deep swoon; he now moved, and opening his eyes, fixed them on the surgeon who stood at the foot of the bed. "It is about over with me, Herr Doctor, is it not?" he asked languidly.