At least, I closed my eyes and entered a world of vague shapes. And then I entered a wood. The cottage of the old woman who made the whistles was before me. It had a window on either side of the door, and in one window there were jars of sugar-sticks. I knocked at the door. It flew open, and there stood Vogel, the jäger with the hooked nose. He smilingly beckoned me in. I entered, and, hey presto! his smile vanished with the closing of the door, and I was on a bed, and he was smothering me with a pillow. And then I awoke, and I was in bed and I was being smothered by a pillow. Oh, horror! Oh, the horror of that waking! Someone was lying upon me; a pillow was over my face, crushing it! I shrieked, and my shriek did not go an inch beyond my mouth. My nose was crushed flat; my mouth, opening to scream, could not close again. The pillow bulged in, and then, flung away like a feather by the wind, went the form that was crushing me and the pillow that was smothering me; and shriek upon shriek--the most horrid, the most unearthly, the most soul-sickening--shriek after shriek tore the air; and, jumping upon my feet, standing on the bed with arms outspread, I gazed on the sight before me, adding my thin voice to the outcries that were piercing the schloss from cellar to turret. On the floor, lit for my view by the halfpenny nightlight calmly burning in its little dish, Marengo and a man were at war--and the victory was with Marengo. The great dog had got the man by the back of the neck. The man, face down, was drumming on the floor with his fists and feet, just as you see an angry child in a fit of passion. The dog was dumb, and making mighty efforts to turn the man on his face. He lifted him, he shifted him, he dragged him hither and thither. The man, screaming, knew what the dog wanted, and clung to the floor. Suddenly the dog sprang away, and, like a flash of lightning, sprang back. He had got the throat-hold, and a deep gobbling, worrying sound was the end of the man and his hunting for ever. For the man was Vogel. I saw that, and then I saw nothing more. CHAPTER XI THE DUEL IN THE WOOD When I regained consciousness I was in my father's room, lying on the bed. Joubert was sitting on the bed beside me. "Joubert," said I, "where is he?" "Who?" "Vogel." "God knows!" said Joubert. "Here, drink this." It was brandy, and it nearly took my breath away, but it gave me life. "Now," said Joubert, putting the glass on the table by the bed and taking my small trousers in his hand, "put these on." "Why am I to dress, Joubert?" "We are going away. Ah, fine doings there have been! And who knows the end of it all?" As he helped me to dress, he told me of what had occurred. The gentlemen below had been playing cards when the shrieks of Vogel had sundered the cardplayers like the sword of death.