e, mein Herr."

"Then get out your sweeps, and turn back. Where are we, do you think?"

"Under the battlements of Furstenberg Castle."

"Damnation! Put some speed into your men, and let us get away from
here."

The captain ordered his crew to hurry, but all their efforts could not
release the boat from the chain, against which it ground up and down
with a tearing noise, and even the un-nautical swordsmen saw that the
current was impelling it diagonally toward the shore, and all the while
the deep bell tolled on.

"What in the fiend's name is the meaning of that bell?" demanded
Kurzbold.

"It is the Castle bell, mein Herr," replied the captain.

Before Kurzbold could say anything more the air quivered with shout
after shout of laughter. Torches began to glisten among the trees, and
there was a clatter of horses' hoofs on the echoing rock. A more
magnificent sight was never before presented to the startled eyes of so
unappreciative a crowd. Along the zigzag road, and among the trees,
spluttered the torches, each with a trail of sparks like the tail of a
comet. The bearers were rushing headlong down the slope, for woe to the
man who did not arrive at the water's edge sooner than his master.

The torchlight gleamed on flashing swords and glittering points of
spears, but chief sight of all was the Margrave Hermann von
Katznellenbogenstahleck, a giant in stature, mounted on a magnificent
stallion, as black as the night, and of a size that corresponded with
its prodigious rider. The Margrave's long beard and flowing hair were
red; scarlet, one may say, but perhaps that was the fiery reflection
from the torches. Servants, scullions, stablemen carried the lights; the
men-at-arms had no encumbrance but their weapons, and the business-like
way in which they lined up along the shore was a study in discipline,
and a terror to any one unused to war. Above all the din and clash of
arms rang the hearty, stentorian laughter of the Red Margrave actually
echoing back in gusts of fiendish merriment from the hills on the other
side of the Rhine.

Now the boat's nose came dully against the ledge of rock, to whose
surface the swaying chain rose dripping from the water, sparkling like a
jointed snake under the torchlight.

"God save us all!" cried the Margrave, "what rare show have we here? By
my sainted patron, the Archbishop, merchants under arms! Whoever saw the
like? Ha! stout Captain Blumenfels, do I recognize you? Once more m