"Why, we watched him from the stone steps," replied the soldier, "and he lifted the latch and shook the door, but at first it would not open. After a while, however, it was suddenly flung back, and in he went." "Did he close it behind him?" asked the Count, and Adelaide gazed anxiously on the man's face, in expectation of his answer. "Some one did," replied the soldier, "but I can't tell whether it was he or not." Thus saying he took his seat again at the table, and all remained silent for several minutes, waiting with different degrees of anxiety for the result. "The boy is mad," murmured Seckendorf, to himself, after two or three more minutes had elapsed; and then he added aloud, "Hundred thousand! we must not leave this lad to be strangled by the ghosts, or devils, or whatever they are, my lord." "I will go myself," replied the Count, rising from the table; "let those who will, follow me." "Stay, let us get some torches," cried Karl von Mosbach. But just at that moment there was a clang which shook the whole castle; and while the party assembled gazed on each other's faces in doubt and consternation, the door of the hall in which they were was thrown quickly open, and Ferdinand entered bearing a banner in his hand. His face was very pale; but his brow was stern and contracted, and advancing direct towards the Count, who had come down from the step on which his table was raised, he laid the banner before him. His lord gazed from the banner to his face, and from his face back to the banner, which was torn and soiled, and stained in many places with blood. "How is this?" he exclaimed, at length. "This is not what I sent you for!" "This is the banner, my lord," replied Ferdinand; "which was hanging between the two shields at the farther end of the hall, over your chair of state." Old Seckendorf bent down over the tattered silk, on which was embroidered a lion with its paw upon a crescent; and as he did so, he murmured, with a shake of the head, "Your brother's banner, Sir, which he carried with him to the East." "What have you seen?" demanded the Count, sinking his voice, and fixing his eyes upon the young man's countenance. "Not now, my lord," replied Ferdinand, in the same low tone; "another time, when you are alone, and have leisure."