But little cared I for the scenery. I was examining the Man in Armour. He was taller than a real man, and his head was one huge mass of iron cast in the form of a morion. Clauss of Innsbruck had made him, and he struck me with a creepy sensation that was half fear. He stood with his huge hammer half raised; and the knowledge that at the hour he would wheel on his pivot and hit the bell vested him with an uncanny suggestion of life, even though one knew he was dead and made of iron. "He will not strike for ten minutes," said Gretel. "Gott! how cold it is here, and how windy! Come, let us play a game of blind-man's buff to keep ourselves warm." My small handkerchief was brought into requisition, and Gretel blinded me, pinning the handkerchief to my képi. "And now," said Gretel, "I will bind Eloise, and you can try to catch me." Then we played. If you had been standing below you might have heard our laughter. I had just missed Eloise, when I was myself seized from behind by the waist, and Gretel's voice cried: "Now I've caught you!" Even as she spoke a deep rumbling came from the machinery-room below. "Now I've caught you. Now I've caught you!" cried Gretel's voice, that seemed choking with laughter. Something like a mighty bird swept past my forehead, tearing the képi from my head and the handkerchief from my eyes, and flinging me on the floor with the wind of its passage. BOOM! The great hammer of the Man in Armour had struck its first stroke, and with a thunderous, heart-shattering sound. The great hammer had passed my head so close that another half inch would have meant death. BOOM! I lay paralysed, looking up at the iron figure swinging to its work. He had nearly killed me, and I knew it. Again the hammer flew towards the bell. BOOM! The tower rocked, and the sound roared through the openings, and the joints of the iron figure groaned and the arms upflew once more. BOOM! And once again, urged by the might of the hammer-man, tremendous, apocalyptic, and sinister the voice of the great bell burst over the woods. BOOM! The woodmen in the forests of the Taunus corded their bundles and prepared for home, for five o'clock had struck from the Schloss Lichtenberg. At the first stroke, Eloise had sat down on the floor, screaming with fright at the noise. She was sitting there still, with her eyes bandaged, when the sound died away. "What an escape!" cried Gretel, who was white and shaking. "Little boy, had I not plucked you away, the hammer would have killed you! It would have killed you had it not been for me!" But in my heart I knew better than that. * * * * * That night I told Joubert of the thing. He said Gretel was a fool. "Joubert," I said, "I am afraid of this house, and I am afraid of Gretel; and I want to say my prayers again, please, for I was not thinking when I said them just now."