"Go," he had commanded, "and don't come near me and my visitors again."
And she had hung her head humbly, and vanished behind the rubbish heap, and there she cowered now, in terror of being discovered.
When Boleslav had finished his story, Engelbert exchanged significant glances with his friends, then said--
"We have brought the requisite tools with us. If you can supply us with the wood, we will knock you up a coffin in a very short time."
"Naturally it won't be a very grand one," remarked Peter Negenthin with a stony smile.
Engelbert looked at him reprovingly. A subdued growl passed from mouth to mouth through the little party, which Boleslav, in his most light-hearted confidence in his friends' good will, did not hear.
"Do you remember," he exclaimed, "that coffin we made for the young Count Dohna in the dark? We took two hours over it, though we couldn't see an inch before our noses."
But his reminiscences met with no response.
"One of you hold the horses," said Engelbert, "and the rest of us will go and look for wood. All must be ready before nightfall."
Boleslav bethought him of the wine in the cellar, which the fire had spared, where also was the frugal larder, containing bread and salt meat, but not enough with which to entertain his friends.
"I have next to nothing to offer you to eat," he said, "but I wish you would at least refresh yourselves with a bottle of wine before setting to work."
The friends were silent, and their faces clouded.
"Never mind refreshment," said Engelbert, trying to assume a facetious tone. "Wine makes a man lazy, and we haven't a minute to spare."
He stooped to test some scorched rafters that lay about among the stable ruins.
"This will do," he said, "but we won't saw off the blackened part; that will serve us instead of paint."
And he walked on farther with Boleslav to look for more rafters. Something white rose suddenly out of the earth in front of them, and disappeared in a twinkling behind a neighbouring wall.
Boleslav instinctively balled his fists, for he had recognised Regina.
"I ought to apologise," he said, "for not being able to send you a better messenger. I had no one else to send."
Engelbert was about to speak, but seemed to think better of it.