The lady looked
at the moon; the count looked at the lady.
The baroness, as was evident, was thorough in whatever she undertook.
She waited for the full obscuration--until the last vestige of moonlight
had vanished, and only a strange-looking, dull, copper-hued ball hung in
the sky.
The baroness now rose and went into the house. The astronomer on the
castle tower observed that she neglected to close the veranda door.
It was now quite dark; the silence of midnight reigned over everything.
Count Vavel waited in his observatory until the moon emerged from
shadow.
Instead of the moon, something quite different came within the field of
vision.
From the shrubbery in the rear of the manor there emerged a man. He
looked cautiously about him, then signaled backward with his hand,
whereupon a second man, then a third and a fourth, appeared.
Dark as it was, the count could distinguish that the men wore masks, and
carried hatchets in their hands. He could not see what sort of clothes
they wore.
They were robbers.
One of the men swung himself over the iron trellis of the veranda; his
companions waited below, in the shadow of the gate.
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