"I cannot tell," replied the captive. "They had received timely notice, it would seem, of my errand, and had fled ere I reached Ulm; but I have heard that both died of the fever at Regensburg, not a year after. It is true, too; for those who told me knew what they said. So I swore to the Count that they were dead; but because I could bring no one to prove that they perished in the Danube, he would not pay the rest, and I kept the bond." "Who read to you the Count's letters, and wrote your answers," inquired his interrogator; "for you are no clerk yourself?" "A shaveling--a priest I had with me then," said the Baron. "He had fled to me from Würtzburg, where he had killed a man in a fray about a woman; but he is dead now, the good clerk. He drank half a hogshead of red wine in a week, which made him so sleepy he never woke again." "No more of him," cried the voice sternly. "So the mother and the child died of the fever. Now, speak; Who were they?" "Nay, that I know not," said the prisoner. "All I know is what the Count told me, which was, that she was his dead brother's leman, and the boy a bastard, whom he did not believe even to be his brother's child. They wanted money from him, I fancy, on some old written promise of the last count--a thousand Venetian ducats yearly--so he told me; and he thought it best to give me two years of the payment, and have done with it for ever." "Is this all you know of this matter?" asked the Black Rider again. "All, upon my life!" answered the Baron. "They are both dead--that is certain; but I had no hand in their death, I will swear upon the holy cross." The gigantic figure remained motionless and silent for more than a minute, then waved his hand from right to left with a peculiar motion. The Baron turned his head, in some doubt whether he should not see the naked sword behind him taking the same direction towards his neck; but suddenly the man who held the torch reversed it, pressed the flaming end upon the ground and the next moment all was darkness.