Garami shrugged his shoulders. "I meant nothing," he muttered between his teeth. "Well, good night, Wenzel. There are soldiers within call, good Red comrades, who will not hesitate to run a _bourgeois_ through with bayonets. If there is anything wrong, shout." "Yah! Anything wrong! What can be wrong? If anyone comes I will spit on them and they will run. Good night, comrade. Let no uneasy dreams disturb you. To-morrow Count Bakocz will--die." His eyes flashed joyfully, as if he were already watching the life blood draining away from the victim's body, and his gloating expression caused Garami to hurry the quicker away. Ample preparations had been made to guard the prison well. Posted in different parts of the building were groups of Red soldiers. No one could enter without the knowledge of the guards, and even if intruders were successful in this there was still the huge Wenzel to overcome. Garami breathed a little easier as he left the prison. He had been responsible for the appointment of Wenzel, and if anything should go wrong he was not too sure of his comrades' affability, that he would not hang side by side with his _protégé_. That, therefore, was the position at ten o'clock on Sunday night, the night before the prisoner was to be tried, which was, of course, synonymous with death. If the White Knight failed the Count would die. The hours wore on. The soldiers sang and ate, drank and joked, and Wenzel sat on his chair, outside the Count's cell, singing too, his huge voice echoing through the dim corridors so that prisoners in distant cells could not sleep. At intervals he would open the grill to shout insults at the hapless prisoner, picturing the death that would overtake him in the morning, by all of which the Count remained unmoved. He knew, just as every one else knew, that on the morrow he would die, and so he gave his last thoughts to the family left behind at Balassagyarmat. If a tear rolled down his cheek it was not because he was afraid of death. His poor Elizabeth, his poor Cecile! Only the seventeen-year-old Francis to guard and protect them, and such friends as could creep to them unseen. What of his family at Balassagyarmat? Since the night Arnold Terhune had brought the news of the White Knight's oath they had heard nothing. When Sunday night arrived they did not attempt sleep. Cecile and Francis joined their mother, and in the darkness they held hands and comforted one another through the lonely hours. With anxious hearts, with fear that the White Knight would fail counter-balancing their hope that he would succeed, could they, by some miracle, have seen the prison then, at two o'clock in the morning, they might have flinched with horror, for still nothing had happened. The guards still talked and sang, Wenzel still sat on his stool. The only movement was that of a Red soldier who staggered about with bottles of wine, liberally dosing the guards with liquor.