ld soon learn what was before
her. Perhaps the Emperor Charles himself was awaiting her up there. But
if he asked her whether she intended always to defy him, she would show
him that Barbara Blomberg was not to be intimidated; that she knew how
to defend herself and, if necessary, to suffer; that she would be ready
to risk everything to baffle his design and carry out her own resolve.
Then he should see that nations and kings, nay, even the Holy Father
in Rome-as Charles had once sacrilegiously done--may be vanquished and
humbled; that the hard, precious stone may be crushed and solid metal
melted, but the steadfast will of a woman battling for what she holds
dearest can not be broken.

The sedan chair had already passed through half a dozen citadel gates
and left one solid wall behind it, but now a second rose, with a lofty
door set in its strong masonry.

When Barbara had formerly ascended the Trausnitz, with what pleasure
she had gazed at the deep moat at her left, the pheasants, the stately
peacocks, and other feathered creatures, as well as a whole troop of
lively monkeys; but this time she saw nothing except that the heavy
iron-bound portals of the entrance opened before her, that the
drawbridge, though the sun was close to the western horizon, was still
lowered, and that Quijada stood at the end, motioning to the bearers to
set the sedan chair on the ground.

Now the major-domo opened the door, and this time he was not alone;
Barbara saw behind him a woman whose appearance, spite of her angry
excitement, inspired confidence.

The questions which, without heeding his companion, she now with crimson
cheeks poured upon Don Luis as if fairly frantic, he answered in brief,
businesslike words.

The Emperor Charles wished to place her in safe quarters up here, while
he himself had taken lodgings in the modest house of a Schwaiger--a
small farmer who tilled his own garden and land in the valley below.

For the present, some of the most distinguished officers were here in
the citadel as guests of the Duke of Bavaria. Barbara was to live in the
ladies' apartments of the fortress, under the care of the worthy woman
at his side.

"His Majesty could not have provided for you more kindly," he concluded.

"Then may the Virgin preserve every one from such kindness!" she
impetuously exclaimed. "I am dragged to this citadel against my will---"

"And that irritates your strong feeling of independence, which we know,"
rep