An appeal to the knocker, a huge ring in the mouth of a grotesque face, brought a servant, a tall and robust fellow, in a species of livery, to the door, and by the lights in the vestibule that opened beyond, he stared with equal surprise and alarm upon the dripping visitor, who in a somewhat polyglot language, stated the predicament he was in. Another and another came, and ere long they made out that Cecil was an officer of the Servian cavalry--a messenger from the king, who had met with an accident; and as such he found himself rather abruptly ushered into an apartment of palatial aspect, where two ladies, an elder and a younger, were intent upon a game of chess, by the light of a large shaded lamp, the globe of which was supported on the shoulders of a silver statuette of Atlas; but both now arose with astonishment expressed in their faces. Cecil at that time felt himself as if in a dream, or only half conscious of what was passing around him; he remembered afterwards his words of explanation, the commiseration of their replies in the most softly modulated Servian (a soft language at all times) and he found himself committed to the care of 'Theodore,' the man whom he had first seen, and who proved to have been an old soldier, who had seen many broken bones in his time. Cecil's sodden uniform was removed, and his hurt at once seen to, by the valet and an attendant of the lady of the house, who had been for a time one of the good sisters of the _Santas Kreuz Militar_, and knew precisely what to do, so fortunately for Cecil he was in good hands. By them, gently, but firmly, the partial dislocation of the arm at the shoulder--fortunately it was only a partial one--was speedily reduced, a process during which Cecil nearly fainted. Cloths dipped in vinegar were then applied; some wine was given him, and soon after he was left to repose; but he, who had slept on the bare ground for months past--though now in a charming room and luxurious bed, with a coverlet of rich silk lace, lined with pale blue silk, surrounded by luxuries to him unknown since he quitted Britain--felt sleepless, and as the hours passed by they were hours of pain and anxiety--pain to endure, and anxiety to be gone on his duty. Great weariness weighed down his eyelids, and pain would be exchanged for what he thought at times was a dream, or sound sleep; and as parts of the dream, he saw the walls of a handsome room, a little Greek oratory with a _prie dieu_ before it; and therein the figure of some saint, with a gilt halo of horseshoe-shape around the head, and a tiny pink lamp burning before it, and the girl, Ottilie, for such was her name, watching and flitting about it noiselessly. She was more than pretty, with a violet-coloured velvet jacket, embroidered with gold, under which she wore a habit-shirt of the softest white cambric; and her dark sheeny hair was braided close round her small head, not under, but over a skull-cap of crimson cloth.