Rodolph bowed without speaking.
"Admit Count Bertrich," directed the master of Thuron, standing with his great knuckles resting on the table, ready to receive his warlike visitor.
Bertrich strode into the room quite evidently fuming because of the waiting he had been compelled to undergo. He made no salutation, but spoke in a loud voice, plunging directly into his subject. His face was pale, but otherwise he showed no sign of the rough treatment he had encountered. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, but straight at the Black Count, he began:
"Heinrich of Thuron, I bear the commands of my master and yours, Arnold von Isenberg, Lord Archbishop of Treves. In his name I charge you to repair instantly to Treves, bearing with you my Lord's ward, the Countess Tekla, whom you have treacherously encouraged and assisted in setting at defiance the just will of his Lordship. You are also to bring with you as prisoners those who aided her flight, and deliver them to the garrison at Cochem."
The eyes of Count Heinrich gleamed ominously from under the murky brow.
"I have heard," he said, harshly. "Is there anything further I can do to pleasure his Lordship?"
"You are to make public apology to him in his Palace at Treves, delivering into his hands the keys of Castle Thuron, and, after penance and submission have been duly performed and rendered, his Lordship may, in his clemency, entrust you again with the keeping of the castle."
"Does the category end so lamely?"
"I await your answer to as much as I have already cited."
"The Countess Tekla is of my blood, but somewhat contaminated, I admit, by the fact that her father was your predecessor in the Archbishop's favour. She was Arnold's ward, betrothed to you, his menial. She was in your hands at the capital city of the Archbishop, surrounded by spies and environed by troops. If then the girl has the wit to elude you all, baffle pursuit, and arrive unscathed in Thuron, she is even more my relative than I had given her credit for, and now the chief loser in the game comes yelping here to me like a whipped spaniel, crying 'Give her up.' God's wounds, why should I? She will but trick you again and be elsewhere to seek."
"I demand your plain answer, yes or no, to be given at your peril!"
"There is no peril in dealing with so stupid a band as that at Treves, whose head a simple girl may cozen and whose chief warrior, mounted and encased in iron an unarmoured foot-soldier can overthrow. By the three Kings, you strut here in my hall with jingling spurs which you have no right to wear. You know the rules of chivalry; give up your horse, your armour and your sword to the archer who rightfully owns them, having won them in fair field. When thus you have purged yourself of dishonesty, I will lend you a horse to carry my answer back to Treves, which is as follows: Tell the Archbishop that the maiden is in my castle of Thuron. If he want her, let him come and take her."
The colour had returned in more than its usual volume to the pale face of Count Bertrich as he listened to this contemptuous speech, but he made no reply until he had withdrawn the gauntlet from his hand: then, flinging it at the feet of the Black Count, he cried:
"There lies the gauge of my Lord Archbishop of Treves, and when Thuron Castle is blazing, I shall beg of his Lordship to allow me to superintend the hanging of the pirate who now inhabits it."
Heinrich threw back his head with a rasping bark that stood him in place of a laugh.
"Indeed, my Lord, you have the true hangman's favour, and I marvel not the girl fled from you. I am, as you say, somewhat of a pirate, but with more honesty in me than passes current in Treves, so I cannot lift the gauge without leave of its real owner. Steinmetz, bring here the archer with his bow."
When the wonder-stricken archer appeared, grasping his weapon, his mouth full, for he had been reluctantly haled from a groaning board, he looked with some apprehension at the Black Count, expecting a recantation of the promise wrung from him.
"Archer," cried Heinrich, "there lies a gauntlet which is yours of right. I ask you for it."
"Indeed, my Lord," replied the archer, hastily gulping his food to make utterance possible, "if I have aught to say concerning it, it is yours with right good will."
"Then from where you stand, as I refused your formal proposal to judge your marksmanship, pin it for me to the floor."
The archer, nothing loath, drew bow, and with incredible swiftness shot one after another five shafts that pierced fingers and thumb of the glove, the first arrow still quivering while the last struck into its place.
For the only time that day the dark face of the Count Palatine lit up, in radiant admiration of the stout foreigner who stood with a smirk of self-satisfaction while he nodded familiarly to Captain Steinmetz as who would say:
"You see what would have happened if——"
Count Bertrich regarded him with wonder in his eyes, then pulling a purse from under his breast-plate, he said:
"Archer, I am in your debt for horse, armour and arms, and think it little shame to confess defeat to one so skilful. If you will accept this gold in payment, and leave me steed and accoutrements, I shall hold myself still your debtor. My excuse for tardy payment is that you did not wait to claim your own."
"My Lord," said the archer, "I am always willing to compound in gold for any service I can render, and only hope to have another opportunity of practising against your closed helmet with arrows which I shall shortly make a trifle thinner in the shank than those I used to-day. I have to apologise to your Lordship that my shafts were rather too thick at the point to give complete satisfaction either to you or to me."
All sign of levity vanished from Count Bertrich's face as he turned again to the Black Count.
"Although the exhibition we have been favoured with is interesting," he said, "I do not understand what bearing it has upon the point we were discussing. Do you accept challenge, or shall I intercede with my Lord the Archbishop to grant you the terms formerly recited by me?"
"Tell the Archbishop that the glove has been pinned to my floor by five shafts, piercing the points of its five members; there it will remain until his Lordship contritely enters this hall on his knees and pulls them out with his teeth. When he does this and delivers up Count Bertrich to my hangman he shall have peace."
Count Bertrich, again without salutation, turned his back upon the company, and left the apartment while the archer gazed with admiration on Black Heinrich, whose language had no mincing diplomacy about it, but stood stoutly for a quarrel.
CHAPTER XIV.
A RELUCTANT WELCOME.
After Count Bertrich's unceremonious departure, Heinrich stood by the table with black brows, in the attitude of one who listened intently. No one in the room moved or spoke, and in the silence there came from the courtyard the noise of horse's hoofs on stone—first the irregular stamping of an animal struck or frightened by an impatient master, then the rhythmical clatter of the canter, gradually diminishing until it lapsed beyond the hearing. The shutting of the gates with a clang seemed to arouse the master of Thuron. He drew a deep breath and glared about him fiercely, like a man ill-pleased, but determined.
"Steinmetz,"
