"Decoyed! I came of my own free will, for an adventure to my mind. The story is worth telling. I was dying for a sensation, so I decided to cut down a comrade and give him more decent sepulchre than a gizzard. I had just got his corpse in safety to the ground when I heard a confusion of coming footsteps. Fearing it might be noticed that the gibbet was naked I swung myself into the chains. I knew from their conversation they were magical students that passed. I had a yearning to foregather with such once more, as I did in the days of my youth. A practical joke gave me the opportunity, and Heaven be praised for the good hap!" Iron Haquin was about to improve the occasion, but, at this interesting juncture, a howl of rage discharged through the upper air. It came from the head of the Bohemian thrust out of his window. The Jewess snatched up the two hands of her lover and pressed them to her fervid lips. Almost before he was aware of it she had retreated to her bower, and closed the door behind her. At the same moment the Bohemian, having wriggled through his window, leaped headlong into the courtyard. He came down unskilfully. Iron Haquin thought he heard his leg go. He lay there groaning, and then burst into invective against the outlaw. "The devil rough-ride you that have seen, so close, a dream I only sighted from afar. Bestride me the succubus, if I would have brought you hither had I known she would come out to-night. The skies are dark as a wolf's throat, and I believed she only walked in the moon. Full many a night I watched it shine on her silken hair--silken as the touch of sin--long, so that when she unbound it she stumbled in her locks. Her silver body was fragrant as the boundaries of hell. Death and dissolvement! Let me get you in my grips, and you shall never see her twice! Help me to my feet and unfold your blade, and then bite on what prayers you know!" The bandit surveyed this unexpected rival with something very much like fellow-feeling. Then he voiced the question that was uppermost in him. "How old did you suppose her?" "How old? What do I care how old? Old enough to be loved and to love." "How old did you suppose her?" "If you insist on it, I suppose she wears some twenty years, and a queenly garment they!" "What! Twenty years in your sight also! Why I tell you this very girl is the one of whom I spoke to you that I loved twenty years ago." "You lie, by the Father of Lies!" The bandit clapped his hand to hilt, and as instantly snatched it away. "I fight with no cripple," he hissed in his teeth, "but you shall hear from herself God's truth!" So saying he ran his great strength against that door. Twice and thrice he rammed it. It did not flinch. He went back a few steps to acquire a fresh impetus. But before he could return to the attack it flew abruptly open, as if moved by some hidden spring. Iron Haquin uttered an astonished cry. The boudoir was no longer there!