"It was then, as I stood back in hiding, but craning forward not to miss a word or any movement, that I heard all. Those who were returning said that they had scoured the city, but found no trace of the missing girl. What next they said made me shiver in my boots. It was hard to keep my teeth from chattering, which I feared they would have heard. The two who came through the doorway said their orders were, at eleven o'clock to-night, when the people of the city would be asleep, to go to Master Byrckmann's house and search it, high and low, and if they found you not, to bring your father and your mother. "So now, you know!" the simple one exclaimed, sitting on the floor in his soddened clothes. A low cry came from the girl's lips, and she stood facing the door, with her hands clenched tightly, watching with startled eyes as though she expected to see those sombre and relentless hunters in the doorway. "Herman, I must go and warn my father. They will kill him, and my mother!" she exclaimed, in a broken voice. "And rather than that, oh, I would die!" "No, darling, that must not be," said Herman, trying to soothe her, and throwing an arm around her, to give her an assurance of her safety because of his strength. "I must take you away from the city at once. We must get you to my mother's house, and away through the cavern to the river; and after that God will tell us what to do," he said, in quiet confidence. "Herman, I could not do that. They would take my father and mother away because I was not to be found. Rather than that, I would give myself up." "Nay, that you shall never do!" Herman cried, holding the girl more closely to him. "Listen. Heinrich shall think out some way of escape for us all, and while he is doing that I will go to your father and bid him and your mother come here, and we can all go to some safe place out of the reach of those who want to find you." "You are safe for a time!" exclaimed Heinrich, who had risen to his feet and was standing before Margaret with hands that played with the weapon at his belt. "Safe, Heinrich?" Margaret asked. "But not for long," raising her startled eyes to his, as though she would read in them the extent of her security. "'Tis my father I am thinking of, and my mother," she cried, in a broken voice. "Let me think!" exclaimed Heinrich, throwing out his hand. "I am bewildered. Give me time, for it is a long while yet till the cathedral bell strikes out the hour of eleven." Wet though he was, his soaking clothes clinging to his thin body, and the water still trickling down his face from his soddened cap, he sat on the hearth in a huddled heap, and the others stood by and watched him in silence. They thought he had fallen asleep, he sat so still, and Margaret softly sank into her chair to wait, while Herman's arm rested about her shoulder, to reassure her. He seemed to awake unexpectedly, and, springing to his feet, went to Herman and laid a hand on his arm.