“Answer me!” roared the baron. “Dost know him we seek? What art doing here thyself?”
There was no reply.
“Let me make him speak,” Conradt cried, bold now amid that company; and with drawn sword he came forward.
“So thou’lt not give tongue?” he screamed. “By the rood, I do believe thou knowest where the tinker hath hidden. Out with it, then, ere I split that devil’s head of thine!”
His blade gleamed in the moonlight, and the wretched outcast on the ground raised a beseeching hand. But that blow was never to fall. Instead, as from heaven itself, came a flying shaft, deadly and sure, that struck Conradt’s sword-arm, and snapped it as it had been a dead twig.
It was flung by Wulf, who, forgetting his own danger in wrath to see that helpless man so beset, had hurled, from his hiding-place, the great bolt of forged steel, which, in his haste, he had not cast aside ere climbing the tree. He looked, after that, to see them all rush toward him; but, instead, even the baron was smitten with fear, and deemed, as did his men, that the wrath of God had fallen upon them all for Conradt’s sin in raising blade against him whom Heaven had already marked with vengeance. Most of the soldiers fled upon the instant; but one of his own men helped the hunchback to saddle, and mounting behind to hold him up, they joined the company that raced, flockmeal, away from the place, so that soon not one remained, nor any sound from them came back upon the wind.
Nevertheless, Wulf deemed it best not to venture down, but lay along a great bough of the oak-tree, and at last fell into a doze that lasted until daylight. Even then, when he would have descended, his quick ears caught the sound of passers no great distance off; so he kept his hiding-place hour after hour, until at last, when the sun shining upon the tree-tops told him that the noon was close at hand, all seemed so still that he swung himself down—stiffly, for he was cramped and sore—and gained the ground.
Then was his heart sorrowful, to see, among the bushes that crept up to the edge of the open, the outcast lying still and stark upon his face.
Wulf ran forward, and bending over him, called him by name, but he never stirred nor answered; nevertheless, as Wulf raised the man’s head the closed eyes opened for an instant, though the lids at once fell again.
Hastily gathering the worn figure in his arms, Wulf bore it into the smithy and laid it on Karl’s bed. Then he busied himself with blowing up the fire in the forge and warmed some goat’s milk which, little by little, he succeeded in forcing between the white lips. He chafed the limp hands and wrapped warmly the cold body, until by and by a stronger flutter of life came in the faint heart-beats, and the man’s breathing was more noticeable.