It chanced, one November day, that the Baron had been hunting in the forest, and did not reach home till nightfall. There were no guests with him, for, as I hinted to you before, the castle of Arnheim seldom received any other than those from whom its inhabitants hoped to gain augmentation of knowledge. The Baron was seated alone in his hall, illuminated with cressets and torches. His one hand held a volume covered with characters unintelligible to all save himself. The other rested on the marble table, on which was placed a flask of Tokay wine. A page stood in respectful attendance near the bottom of the large and dim apartment, and no sound was heard save that of the night wind, when it sighed mournfully through the rusty coats of mail, and waved the tattered banners which were the tapestry of the feudal hall. At once the footstep of a person was heard ascending the stairs in haste and trepidation; the door of the hall was thrown violently open, and, terrified to a degree of ecstasy, Caspar, the head of the Baron's stable, or his master of horse, stumbled up almost to the foot of the table at which his lord was seated, with the exclamation in his mouth,-- "My lord, my lord, a fiend is in the stable!" "What means this folly?" said the Baron, arising, surprised and displeased at an interruption so unusual. "Let me endure your displeasure," said Caspar, "if I speak not truth! Apollyon"---- Here he paused. "Speak out, thou frightened fool," said the Baron; "is my horse sick, or injured?" The master of the stalls again gasped forth the word, "Apollyon!" "Say on," said the Baron; "were Apollyon in presence personally, it were nothing to shake a brave man's mind." "The devil," answered the master of the horse, "is in Apollyon's stall!" "Fool!" exclaimed the nobleman, snatching a torch from the wall; "what is it that could have turned thy brain in such silly fashion? Things like thee, that are born to serve us, should hold their brains on a firmer tenure, for our sakes, if not for that of their worthless selves."