anxiously the silent preparations of Bertrich. The Count, however, was in little hurry to begin, apparently wishing to satisfy himself that he had neglected no expedient necessary for his own safety.
"There is no help for it," said the Emperor. "Do your best, and Heaven speed the shaft."
The bowman twanged the string, bending forward eagerly to watch the fate of his arrow. The shaft sang an ever lowering song, as it flew, falling fairly against the bars of the visor with an impact that rang back to them, palpably penetrating an interstice of the helmet, for it hung there in plain sight. The Count angrily shook his head, like an impatient horse tormented by the bite of a fly, but he sat steady, which showed the archer there was an arrow wasted. The toss of his head did not dislodge the missile, and the Count, with a sweep of his gauntlet, broke it away and cast it contemptuously from him.
"Alas!" groaned the archer, fitting the second to the string, "it was the thinnest bolt I had."
Count Bertrich waited not for the second, but came eagerly to meet it, bending down as a man does who faces a storm—levelling lance and striking spur. The horse gallantly responded. The second arrow struck the helmet and fell shivered, the third was aimed at the chain armour on the neck, and striking it, glanced into the wood, disappearing among the thick foliage. Still Bertrich came on unchecked, raising his head now to see through the apertures of his visor to the transfixing of the archer, who, well knowing there was but scant time for further experiment, hastily plucked a fourth arrow from his quiver, and, without taking aim, launched it with a wail of grief at the charger, driving the arrow up to its very wing in the horse's neck just above the steel breastplate. The horse, with a roar of terror, fell forward on its knees, its rider's lance thrusting point into the earth some distance ahead, whereupon Bertrich, like an acrobat vaulting on a pole, described an arc in the air and fell, with jangling clash of armour, at the feet of the Emperor, relaxing his limbs and lying there with a smothered moan.
The archer paid no attention to the fallen noble, but running forward to the horse began to bewail the necessity that had encompassed its destruction. He however thriftily pulled the arrow from its stiffening neck, wiped it on the grass, and spoke, as if to the dead horse, of the celerity of its end, and the generally satisfactory nature of bow-shot wounds, wishing that the animal might have had a realisation of its escape from being mauled to its death by clumsy Germans.
Rodolph stooped over his foe to throw back on its hinges his visor, whose opening revealed the unconscious face of the Count.
"It seems inhuman to leave him thus," he said, "but there is a woman's safety in question, and I fear he must take the chance he drove down upon."
"He can make no complaint of that," replied the archer, "and is like to come speedily to his contentious self again, if I may judge by the flutter of his eyelids. Indeed, I grieve not for his bruises, but for the hurt his obstinacy forced me to inflict upon his poor horse, a noble animal which I never would have slain did not necessity compel."
"Capture a horse belonging to one of the fallen men, and accompany me down the hill," said Rodolph, briefly.
The archer first recovered the two arrows that had overthrown his unknown opponents, bestowing on their bodies none of the sympathy he had lavished on the horse, for, as he muttered to himself, it was their trade, and a well-met shaft should occasion them little surprise, which undoubtedly was the fact.
Having, with some difficulty, secured one of the horses, and with still more trouble succeeded in seating himself in the saddle—for, as he said, he was more accustomed to the broad of his foot than the back of a horse—he followed his leader, who, with grave anxiety, was scanning the river bank opposite Alken, hoping to see some indication of the Countess emerging from the forest.
"Archer," said Rodolph, turning to his follower, "your great skill, and no less indomitable courage, has to-day saved my life, and has placed me otherwise under more obligation to you than you can easily estimate. I hope yet to make good my debt, but in the meantime I may cheer your heart by telling you that your expert bowmanship has made inevitable what was before extremely probable, which is, that these valleys will shortly ring with war, and the Lord only knows when the conflict shall cease—possibly not until yonder castle is destroyed, or the Archbishop returns defeated to Treves."
"Say you so, my Lord? Then indeed is virtue rewarded, as I have always been taught, though seeing little confirmation of it in my wandering over this earth. I winged my shafts for the pure pleasure of seeing them speed, not forgetting my duty to you in the earning of my threepence a day, duly advanced into my palm before service was asked, the which, I know to my grief, is not customary among nobles, although fair encouragement in spoils gives compensation for backwardness in pay; still I had no hope for such outcome as war, when I drew string to ear, and am the more encouraged to think that a wholesome act, thus unselfishly accomplished, brings fitting recompense so trippingly on its trail. You spoke of the Archbishop (God bless his Lordship), do I fight, think you, for, or against him?"
"As the man you have so recently overturned is the friend, favourite, and in general the right hand of the Archbishop, judge you in which camp your neck is hereafter the safer."
"I have long desired to fight for the Church, but, for a devout man, it seems ever my fate to be on the opposite side. Ah well, it matters little, and it serves the Archbishop right for the inhospitality of his gate at Treves, where they know not a useful soldier when they see one. We are like to be beleaguered in yon castle then?"
"Very like, indeed."
"Know you aught of how they are provisioned for a siege?"
"That will be among the first things I shall inquire when I enter."
"It is a most important particular, and in the inquiry it might not be a waste of breath to give some hint regarding the plenishing of the wine vaults."
"I understand Black Heinrich has a secret passage to the river, so we are not likely to suffer from thirst."
"'Tis a sensible precaution; I would not say a word against water, which I have often found to be useful in the washing of wounds and otherwise, still when a man is expected to fight, I think there is nothing puts such heart in him as a drop of good sound wine, so it be not taken to excess, although the limit of its usefulness, in my own case, I have never yet had a sufficiency of the beverage to gauge."
"The Black Count, from what I hear of him, is not one to neglect the laying in of wine; it however may be well to question him closely regarding his cellarage before you take service with him, for I surmise that he who finds lodgment in the castle will not soon get abroad again, as the troops of the Archbishop will shortly encircle it closely."
"The prospect," said the archer, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth as if his lips were already moist with good vintage, "is so alluring that I can scarce credit it, and fear the Archbishop may give or accept apology, for we seem to be in a region where compromise is held in high esteem, and his Lordship has already acquired the reputation of being a cautious man (may I be forgiven if I do him an injustice); still, if the Count who plunged so bravely against us, hath the ear of him, he may whisper some courage into it, for he acquitted himself on the hilltop as a man should. I must confess that I should dearly cherish the privilege of being beleaguered in a strong castle, for it hath ever been my fortune to fight hitherto in the field, directing my shafts against various strongholds, and living with scant protection while launching them, sleeping where I might, in a ditch or in a tent, as the gods willed, and ever like to have my slumbers broken by a stampede or sortie when least expecting it. I was never one who yearned for luxury, but it must be a delight to rest under continual cover with a well-stocked cellar underneath, and the protection of a stout stone parapet while taking deliberate aim, not to mention the advantage that accrues to an archer who lets fly at one below him, rather than continually craning his neck to send his arrow among the clouds, the which gives little chance for accurate marksmanship. On one of yonder towers a man might well aspire to the delight of loosing string at the great Archbishop himself, and may such luck attend me, although I am the least covetous of mortals."
"Well, archer, we shall presently see what befalls and I feel myself the safer that you did not take fee from the Archbishop when you applied