He stooped to test some scorched rafters that lay about among the stable ruins. "This will do," he said, "but we won't saw off the blackened part; that will serve us instead of paint." And he walked on farther with Boleslav to look for more rafters. Something white rose suddenly out of the earth in front of them, and disappeared in a twinkling behind a neighbouring wall. Boleslav instinctively balled his fists, for he had recognised Regina. "I ought to apologise," he said, "for not being able to send you a better messenger. I had no one else to send." Engelbert was about to speak, but seemed to think better of it. "You were obliged to supply her with clothes, I understand?" "Yes," answered Engelbert, his natural loquacity getting the upper hand. "I found her lying on the doorstep with scarcely a rag to her back. She was dead beat. I got up in the night to see what the dogs were barking at." "What? Was it in the night?" "Two o'clock in the morning. Here is a sound rafter. We can use that.... She ran the twenty miles in seven hours. I should never have thought it possible; she lay like an otter that has been shot down--so straight and fair--and gasped for breath. Your sheet of paper she clung to with both hands. She tried to stand up, but fell backwards. Then I fetched her brandy, rubbed her temples, and gave her----" One of his companions who were following behind, now came up, and gave him such a look of astonishment and reproach that he broke off in the middle of a sentence. For the next few hours an industrious sawing and hammering proceeded from the Castle island, which sounds fell disagreeably on the ears of the fierce and much perturbed Schrandeners on the opposite bank of the river. It seemed to portend that their nicely-laid plans were at the last moment to be frustrated. Old Hackelberg appeared in the street with his gun, which, as a rule, lay buried in a dung-heap, because he was afraid that it might be taken away from him, as had once happened when he amused himself by shooting bats in the market-place, declaring that they followed him in swarms wherever he went. With this famous gun he used in old days to go out poaching every night, but since his once unerring hand had become weak and tremulous from drink, he had been obliged to give up the trade. Only when he had drunk even more than usual did the old sporting instinct rise strongly within him, and he would rush to the shed, unearth his gun, and bring down a swallow in full flight through the air. Now he was on the war-path, and with the babbling rhetoric peculiar to him, shouted-- "Schrandeners, duty calls! Arm yourselves against the traitors. I am an unhappy father. Robbed of my child. I'll shoot him dead, the brute." "But he _is_ dead," some one interposed. "Is he? Well, it doesn't matter--the other must be shot--all must be shot down."