Some tragic catastrophe was reported from mouth to mouth: nobody knew what. Some
said - the Landgrave had been assassinated; some - The Masque; some asserted
that both had perished under reciprocal assaults. More believed that The Masque
had proved to be of that supernatural order of beings with which the prevailing
opinions of Klosterheim had long classed him; and that, upon raising his
disguise, he had revealed to the Landgrave the fleshless skull of some forgotten
tenant of the grave. This indeed seemed to many the only solution that, whilst
it fell in with the prejudices and superstitions of the age, was of a nature to
account for that tremendous effect which the discovery had produced upon the
Landgrave. But it was one that naturally could be little calculated to calm the
agitations of the public prevailing at this moment. This spread contagiously.
The succession of alarming events, - the murder, the appearance of The Masque,
his subsequent extraordinary behaviour, the overwhelming impression upon the
Landgrave, which had formed the catastrophe of this scenical exhibition, - the
consternation of the great Swedish officers, who were spending the night in
Klosterheim, and reasonably suspected that the tumult might be owing to the
sudden detection of their own incognito, and that, in consequence, the populace
of this Imperial city were suddenly rising to arms; the endless distraction and
counteraction of so many thousand persons - visitors, servants, soldiery,
household - all hurrying to the same point, and bringing assistance to a danger
of which nobody knew the origin, nobody the nature, nobody the issue; multitudes
commanding where all obedience was forgotten, all subordination had gone to
wreck; - these circumstances of distraction united to sustain a scene of
absolute frenzy in the castle, which, for more than half an hour, the dense
columns of smoke aggravated alarmingly, by raising, in many quarters, additional
terrors of fire. And, when at last, after infinite exertions, the soldiery had
deployed into the ball-room and the adjacent apartments of state, and had
succeeded, at the point of the pike, in establishing a safe egress for the
twelve hundred visitors, it was then first ascertained that all traces of The
Masque had been lost in the smoke and subsequent confusion, and that, with his
usual good fortune, he had succeeded in baffling his pursuers.
 

                                  Chapter XVII

Meantime the Lady Paulina had spent her time in secret grief, inconsolable for
the supposed tragical fate of Maximilian. It was believed that he had perished.
This opinion had prevailed equally amongst his friends and the few enemies whom
circumstances had made him. Supposing even that he had escaped with life