Full of bitterness, he pointed to the corpse. He shook his head, with the grey locks under the felt hat; tears sprang to the corners of his eyes. "Thou shalt not kill!" they heard him mutter. "They seem not to know that yet; nobody knows it yet!..." A strange, mad look troubled his normally clear, grey eyes; he seemed for a moment not to know what he should do. Then he went to a tree, caught up the axe and, without taking further notice of the princes, began to hew like a lunatic, blow upon blow.... The officers hurried to their horses. Dutri gave a last look back: near the corpse, now surrounded by peasants, he saw a woman standing; she sobbed, her desperate arms flung to heaven, she howled, she shook her fist at the equerry's turned face, screaming. Othomar had said nothing. He heard the woman howling behind him. He quivered in every nerve. On the road, preparing to mount, Ducardi asked him, agitatedly: "Shall we return to Castel Vaza, highness?" The prince looked at the general haughtily. Quickly the thought flashed through him that the general had strongly opposed his coming here. He shook his head. Then his eyes sought Von Fest: they glanced up at the colonel under their eyelids, deep-black, moist, almost reproachful. But he held out his hand: "Thank you, colonel," he said, in a husky voice. The colonel pressed the hand which the prince offered him: "Glad to be of service, highness!" he replied, with soldierly brusqueness. "And now let us go on to the Zanthos," said Othomar, walking up to his horse. But the old general could master himself no longer. In these last moments he had felt all his passionate love--seated hereditarily, firmly in his blood, of a piece with him, his very soul and all that soul--for the reigning house. His fathers had died for it in battle, without hesitation. And with the mad, wide embrace of his long, powerful old arms, he ran up to Othomar, grateful that he was alive, pressed him as if he would crush him against his breast, until the buttons of his uniform scratched Othomar's cheek, and cried, sobbing, under his trembling moustache: "My prince, my prince, my prince!..." 8 The attempt on Othomar's life was known at Castel Vaza before the princes returned, from peasants of the duke's, who had told the castle-servants long stories of how the prince had been severely wounded. The duchess had at first refused to believe it; then, in rising anxiety, in the greatest tension and uncertainty, she had walked about the corridors. She had first tried to persuade herself that the people were sure to exaggerate. When she reflected that, in the event of Othomar's being wounded, the princes and the equerries would have returned at once, she became more tranquil and waited patiently.