"Back, my liege! treachery!" shouted Count Henrik suddenly. "Yonder hangs the Drost's shoulder scarf; there is certainly a pitfall here." The long red scarf hung just above their heads from the iron railing of the balcony. "As I live, my faithful Aagé; I heard him bemoan himself above there," said the king eagerly, without heeding the warning, and hastened up the stair; but Count Henrik rushed after him and seized his arm ere he reached the uppermost landing. They both stopped as in amazement, and at the same moment uttered a cry of horror on seeing the unhappy Drost lie deadly pale and bleeding at the top of the staircase. "Dead! dead!" cried the king, and was hastening up to him; but Count Henrik still detained him, while he himself sprang forward, and tramped on every step of the hollow stair. Aagé opened his eyes, and recognised the king. "Back from the grave, my liege!" he called with a faint voice, as he rolled himself forward to the king's feet, and clasped his knees. "Aagé! great Heavens! what is this?" exclaimed the king, and raised him in his arms. At the same instant the door of the hall of the upper story opened, and a tall, steel-clad knight, disarmed, and with an uncovered and hoary head, stepped across the balcony, and took his stand on the uppermost landing of the stair. "You stand beside a grave, King Eric!" he said in a terrific voice; "I had prepared it for you; but a higher power presides here; now shall it open, and swallow me up before your eyes." He stamped with all his might on the rocking and creaking trap-door under his feet. "Ha! why tarriest thou, slave?" he shouted in a voice of thunder. "Away with the bolt; draw it quick." "No, no, in the name of a merciful Heaven!" said a beseeching voice from the castle cellar far beneath him; "I cannot; I would sooner be perjured and eternally damned." "What is all this?" asked the king in the greatest amazement. "Doth that man rave? Who is he?" "The commandant of the castle, my liege," answered Count Henrik, who stood with his drawn sword before the king, and with the one foot on the trap-door.