Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/446

 sures he had taken for surprising the abominable miscreants in their den. About ten o'clock the drum beat to arms, and two hundred grenadiers and sixty troopers, according to the orders previously received collected on the parade facing his excellency's residence. A quarter of an hour after, the governor, Rosalia, Caroline and I, marched this corps out of the city, whence with lighted torches, and guided by Rosalia, we penetrated into the antic forest, towards the antic castle. Arrived on the spot, the troops immediately occupied all the passes and avenues to and from the ruinous mansion, so that it was impossible for any of the mystic barbarians to escape. It could then be about three o'clock in the morning of the sixteenth, and the Covenant was supposed to have sat not much longer than an hour. A detachment of twenty grenadiers, with fixed bayonets, were now picked out to force their way through the corridor, but they found the iron-gate, at the distance of a few yards from the anti-chamber of the saloon, shut up. Attempting to force it open, the monsters from within took the alarm, and