The evening was far advanced, before I could recover myself sufficiently to take some precautions for our security, and make such enquiries, as appeared to me highly necessary; the gates were carefully fastened; the draw-bridge was raised. As our strength was unequal to the task of burying the dead, we were obliged to throw the corses into a ruined well, situated in a back-corner in a remote part of the Castle: and this melancholy duty being performed, we employed ourselves in collecting every circumstance, which might assist us to guess at the authors of our late misfortune. The Seneschal, before whose bed the consultation was held, produced many weighty reasons for asserting, that the Abbot of St. Gall (to whose account we were inclined to set down any wickedness) in the present instance was perfectly innocent. As to the person, at whose door he was disposed to lay the blame, he obstinately refused to give the least hint; but he made no scruple of avowing that he was not without suspicions. The little Minna, who now never stirred a moment from my side, and to whom we were not paying the least attention, interrupted us to say,—“that she had never heard the Abbot of St. Gall speak, and that she was sure, that the voice of the chief robber was not unknown to her, though she could not recollect where she had heard it. She had even said as much, while in his power; but the only reward of her recollection had been a blow, which struck her senseless at his feet. Shortly after she had been forced from her mother’s arms, and left among the mountains.”— —“Alas, my child,” said I, “you were probably deceived by some fancied resemblance!—But what must now be done? where is the messenger, who informed us yesterday of the fatal ambuscade?—Perhaps, he may be able to give us some insight into the author of this second attack.”— —“Ah! would to God,” answered the old Seneschal, “that I had either examined that messenger more circumstantially, or at least had watched him closer! yet who could have imputed treachery to Dietrich, or suspect a man, who seemed to be at the point of death, of an intention to escape?” —“To escape?” I exclaimed; “has Dietrich fled? when and how did this take place?”— —“We were all busy in making preparations for binding up his wounds, of whose pain he complained bitterly, but which it seems none of us ever saw. We left him alone for a few moments, and in the meanwhile he disappeared. We sought him long, but he was not to be found; and we finished by conjecturing, that courage and fidelity had induced him to follow you in spite of his wounds, and to endeavour at contributing to his master’s rescue; though we doubted not from his apparently weak condition, that he must have died by the way.”— —“And why should not your conjecture have been well-founded? Dietrich was ever one of Count Venosta’s most faithful servants.”—