"You do not ask at all, sir, if Eliza Wallner will return with the men?" asked Schroepfel, angrily. "I should think you ought to take some interest in that, for Lizzie is your betrothed." "She is not!" cried the captain, starting up indignantly, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. "Yes, she is," said Schroepfel, composedly. "I myself heard the girl say to her father and the men of Windisch-Matrey: 'He is my bridegroom; I love him, and you must not kill him.' And because she said so, the men spared your life, although Anthony Wallner- Aichberger was very angry, and would not forgive his daughter for having given her heart to an enemy of her country, a Bavarian, and, moreover, a nobleman, and not to an honest peasant. But Lizzie begged and wailed so much that her father could not but yield, and promised her to forgive all if she proved that she was no traitoress to her country, but a true and brave daughter of the Tyrol; after doing so, he would permit her to marry her Bavarian betrothed. And now she has proved that she is a true and brave daughter of the Tyrol, and the whole country is full of the heroic deeds performed by Lizzie Wallner, and of the intrepidity which she displayed under the most trying circumstances. And to-day, captain, you will meet again your betrothed, who saved your life, and who went with the men only to perform heroic deeds that would induce her father to consent to her union with you. I tell you, sir, beautiful Lizzie Wallner, your betrothed, will return in an hour or two." The young man's face crimsoned for a moment, and when the color disappeared from his cheeks, their pallor was even more striking and ghastly than before. "Eliza Wallner fought, then, very bravely against--against my countrymen?" he asked, pantingly. "No, she did not fight, sir, but she went into the thickest shower of bullets to carry away the wounded Tyrolese, and attend to their injuries; and she drove a hay-wagon directly toward the enemy, and our men were concealed behind the hay, and she brought a keg of wine to our men while the bullets were whistling round her; and, finally, she and the other women escorted the Bavarian prisoners to Castle Steinach." The young man uttered a cry, and buried his face in his hands. "What a disgrace, oh, what a disgrace!" he groaned, despairingly; and in his grief he seemed to have entirely forgotten the presence of the servant, for he wept, wept so bitterly that large scalding tears trickled down between his fingers. "Our brave soldiers were defeated by miserable peasants," he wailed. "The Bavarian prisoners were marched off under an escort of women!" Schroepfel stood as if petrified, and this outburst of the grief of the usually haughty and laconic young man filled him with the utmost surprise and confusion. However, the captain suddenly dried his tears and dropped his hands from his face.