"That's true," said Meyer, "but the ladies must be careful where they plant their feet. If they step off the beaten track they will be up to their waists in soft snow." "There is a moon," said the man in the ulster curtly, climbing over the snow bank and leading the way along the firm but narrow track. The others followed in single file, and for a time nothing was heard but the crunching of snow beneath their feet. For a space their progress lay among pine-trees, through whose black trunks and freshly-silvered branches the moonlight streamed in rays of elfish light. With its mysterious shadows and sharp silences the wood seemed a vast natural treasure house, wherein the frost jewels gleamed with rich profusion and the strange radiance of an enchanted dreamland. To walk with open eyes in such scenes was to lose touch with reality, to forget the sway and swirl of things material, the harsh absurdities of Grimland's civic strife. No wonder a silence fell on the pacing line. The awakening was rude. As they emerged from the many pillared sanctuary of the forest there was a loud cry of "Now!" Someone, a man in a woollen helmet, threw a cloak around Karl's head and shoulders; someone, a man with a thick beard, struck Saunders heavily in the face, so that he fell back from the firm path into the yielding depth of the untrodden snow. At the same moment Von Bilderbaum, hastening to the King's rescue, was tripped up by the man in the green ulster, and measured his length violently on the hard path. Meyer, quick as thought, whipped out a revolver and fired point blank between the shoulders of Bilderbaum's assailant. Frau von Bilderbaum screamed, and in her emotion stepped off the firm path and disappeared backwards into a sea of incohesive crystals. Before Meyer had time to fire again a man was at his throat, a man with a beard hanging grotesquely from one ear, a man with mad passion in his eye and a nameless oath on his lips. "Bernhardt!" gasped Meyer, fighting with the frenzy of a terror-stricken man. His assailant was his superior in weight and vigour, but fortunately for the Commander-in-Chief had but the use of one arm. Nevertheless, the arm that fought him was a limb of steel, the fingers of the sound member as relentless as the tentacles of a devil fish. The Jew sweated and struggled like a man in a nightmare. For a moment, choked and breathless, he was overborne; then relief came. Bilderbaum had regained his feet; the old soldier's sword was drawn from its scabbard, and the ex-priest hissed his last shuddering blasphemy into the night air. "Robert, Robert, are you hurt?" asked Mrs. Saunders, in dire distress, of her struggling spouse, who was making heroic efforts to wade through the waist-deep snow to the _terra firma_ of the trodden path. "Karl--quick!" urged the breathless Englishman, at length making his voice heard now that the struggle was terminated.