proved to be of that supernatural order of beings, with which the prevailing opinions of Klosterheim had long classed him; and that, upon raising his disguise, he had revealed to the Landgrave the fleshless skull of some forgotten tenant of the grave. This indeed seemed to many the only solution that, whilst it fell in with the prejudices and superstitions of the age, was of a nature to account for that tremendous effect which the discovery had produced upon the Landgrave. But it was one that naturally could be little calculated to calm the agitations of the public prevailing at this moment. This spread contagiously. The succession of alarming events,--the murder, the appearance of The Masque, his subsequent extraordinary behavior, the overwhelming impression upon the Landgrave, which had formed the catastrophe of this scenical exhibition,--the consternation of the great Swedish officers, who were spending the night in Klosterheim, and reasonably suspected that the tumult might be owing to the sudden detection of their own _incognito_, and that, in consequence, the populace of this imperial city were suddenly rising to arms; the endless distraction and counter-action of so many thousand persons-- visitors, servants, soldiery, household--all hurrying to the same point, and bringing assistance to a danger of which nobody knew the origin, nobody the nature, nobody the issue; multitudes commanding where all obedience was forgotten, all subordination had gone to wreck;--these circumstances of distraction united to sustain a scene of absolute frenzy in the castle, which, for more than half an hour, the dense columns of smoke aggravated alarmingly, by raising, in many quarters, additional terrors of fire. And when, at last, after infinite exertions, the soldiery had deployed into the ball-room and the adjacent apartments of state, and had succeeded, at the point of the pike, in establishing a safe egress for the twelve hundred visitors, it was then first ascertained that all traces of The Masque had been lost in the smoke and subsequent confusion; and that, with his usual good fortune, he had succeeded in baffling his pursuers. CHAPTER XVII. Meantime the Lady Paulina had spent her time in secret grief, inconsolable for the supposed tragical fate of Maximilian. It was believed that he had perished. This opinion had prevailed equally amongst his friends, and the few enemies whom circumstances had made him. Supposing even that he had escaped with life from the action, it seemed inevitable that he should have fallen into the hands of the bloody Holkerstein; and under circumstances which would point him out to the vengeance of that cruel ruffian as having been the leader in the powerful resistance which had robbed him of his prey.