According to the common Austrian reckoning of them, Herr Johannes had adopted the right method for ensuring the devotion of the maidens of Tyrol.  She responded with an amazed gulp of her mouth and a grimace of acquiescence.  Ten florins in silver shortened the migratory term of the mountain girl by full three months.  Herr Johannes asked her the hour when the officers in command had supper, and deferred his own meal till that time.  Katchen set about earning her money.  With any common Beppo it would have been easy enough—­simple barter for a harmless kiss.  But this Beppo appeared inaccessible; he was so courtly and so reserved; nor is a maiden of Tyrol a particularly skilled seductress.  The supper of the officers was smoking on the table when Herr Johannes presented himself among them, and very soon the inn was shaken with an uproar of greeting.  Katchen found Beppo listening at the door of the salle.  She clapped her hands upon him to drag him away.

‘What right have you to be leaning your head there?’ she said, and threatened to make his proceedings known.  Beppo had no jewel to give, little money to spare.  He had just heard Herr Johannes welcomed among the officers by a name that half paralyzed him.  ’You shall have anything you ask of me if you will find me out in a couple of hours,’ he said.  Katchen nodded truce for that period, and saw her home in the Oberinnthal still nearer—­twelve mountain goats and a cow her undisputed property.  She found him out, though he had strayed through the court of the inn, and down a hanging garden to the borders of a torrent that drenched the air and sounded awfully in the dark ravine below.  He embraced her very mildly.  ‘One scream and you go,’ he said; she felt the saving hold of her feet plucked from her, with all the sinking horror, and bit her under lip, as if keeping in the scream with bare stitches.  When he released her she was perfectly mastered.  ‘You do play tricks,’ she said, and quaked.

‘I play no tricks.  Tell me at what hour these soldiers march.’

‘At two in the morning.’

’Don’t be afraid, silly child:  you’re safe if you obey me.  At what time has our carriage been ordered?’

‘At four.’

’Now swear to do this:—­rouse my mistress at a quarter past two:  bring her down to me.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Kitchen, eagerly:  ’give me your handkerchief, and she will follow me.  I do swear; that I do; by big St. Christopher! who’s painted on the walls of our house at home.’

Beppo handed her sweet silver, which played a lively tune for her temporarily—­vanished cow and goats.  Peering at her features in the starlight, he let her take the handkerchief from his pocket.

‘Oh! what have you got in there?’ she said.

He laid his finger across her mouth, bidding her return to the house.

‘Dear heaven!’ Katchen went in murmuring; ’would I have gone out to that soft-looking young man if I had known he was a devil.’