"The pretty, faithful _Fräulein_ Regina--your deceased father's best beloved. She is a pearl, _Herr Baron_; you ought to hold her in high esteem, and take her away with you on your travels. Often in the darkness of the night have I stuck a loaf and a sausage in her apron, _Herr Baron_, and sometimes a pound of coffee, _Herr Baron_, while I have made my own breakfast off rye-bread for fear of the embargo, _Herr Baron_."
"Well; yes, yes. When one risks one's life one expects to be paid. There is still a little bill due, however, _Herr Baron_, left standing from last winter; if the _Herr Baron_ will have the goodness to----"
"Write out your account, and the money shall be sent you."
"There's no hurry, _Herr Baron_. I have confidence; can trust you, _Herr Baron_. What I wish to say is, take the advice of an old and experienced man, and go home now without more ado; dig a grave behind the Castle, and lay the deceased _Herr_ in it--do it at night, mind, on the quiet, quite on the quiet--_Fräulein_ Regina will assist you--then make the turf perfectly smooth, so that no one will know where you've laid him, and before the dawn of another day ride away again with _Fräulein_ Regina on your saddle to where----"
He paused suddenly, for Boleslav's hand was on the butt-end of his pistols. Then the devilish mockery beneath this suave old hypocrite's counsel was goading him into drastic measures. While he listened to it, a new thought had flashed across his brain with vivid distinctness. The funeral would after all only be the first step in the work that it was incumbent on him to complete. Never would he slink away under cover of night like a criminal, and abandon what remained of the inheritance of his ancestors to utter ruin. No! he would stay and endure all things. Set at defiance all these malicious hyenas, the worst of whom stood before him, now grinning, with greedily gleaming eyes, only awaiting his opportunity to pounce on the masterless unowned possessions.
Renunciation for the sins of the fathers must ever be his lot. And did not the foul act that had laid waste his property deserve retributive justice? He would be a deserter and renegade, indeed, were he now to turn his back on his native place, and on the beloved, who, though she seemed lost to him eternally, might still be cherishing timid hopes of meeting him once more. No! for the future his flag should wave over the ruins of Schranden Castle, with the single word "Revenge" blazoned on it in fiery characters. And who but a cowardly cur would leave his flag in the lurch?