Page:Interesting stories.pdf/17

17 mistake! Welcome as your visit is to me, the joy at your unexpected arrival has, nevertheless, disconcerted me a little. I have taken the wrong bunch of keys. Have patience only two minutes ; shall be back in a trice."

With these words she flew up the stairs, and before two minutes were elapsed, the sound of her footsteps was already heard from the court-yard. On coming near the cellar door, she exclaimed with pretended joy, though one of breath, “ I have found it! I have found it!" and in the same moment bounded suddenly against the sentinel at the entrance, throwing him headlong down the cellar stairs. The trap door was bolted with the quickness of lightning, and the whole band encaged in the cellar.

All this was the work of one moment. In the next, she flew over the court-yard, setting fire to solitary stable, full of straw and hay, and the unes blazed instantaneously aloft. The watchman in the adjacent village observed the blaze, and rung the alarm bell. In a few moments the castle yard was crowded with peasants. "The Baroness ordered some of them to extinguish the flames, while she conducted the rest to the Baron's armory, and having distributed swords and fire amongst them, desired them to surround the cellar. Her orders were obeyed, and not one of the band escaped his well-merited fate.