Now were Wulf’s anxieties well over; for this great company of riders and foot-soldiers was none other than the main part of the Emperor Rudolf’s army, that had ridden on that day from St. Ursula’s wood; for the emperor’s will was that to-morrow should see the attack begun on the Swartzburg.
They were still an hour’s march from the place set for resting that night, where would gather to them a smaller body that had come by another way, minded to meet with a company of riders from the castle, known to be hereabout. So, when he had spoken kindly to young Wulf, for whose sake, indeed, the troop had made their way lie past the forge, Rudolf of Hapsburg bade the boy fall in with the men, and the whole company again went forward, the sick man borne upon a hastily made litter by four of the foot-soldiers.
Getting for himself a good bow and arrow from the smithy, Wulf fell in with the ranks of footmen, and then was he amazed to find that his right-hand neighbor was Hansei from the Swartzburg.
Right pleased was he at the discovery, though well he wondered what it might mean, and he made haste to ask Hansei about the matter. Then did he hear how, two days before, a company of knights and others from the castle, riding in chase of Elise and himself, had fallen in with an outriding party of Rudolf’s men, and there had been fighting.
“Ay,” said Wulf, remembering, “and there at hand were we when that fighting began.”
“Glad am I that we knew it not,” Hansei cried. “For the most part of the emperor’s men were slain or taken prisoner, and few escaped to carry word to the convent; but with them ran I: for I had small stomach to fight ’gainst the lawful rulers of this land, and thou a hunted man beside.”
Then did Hansei ask Wulf of his faring in the woods, whereupon Wulf, as they marched, told him all the story, and how the outcast had come to warn him, and of how the poor fellow had been like to die there by the smithy, and how he had cared for him. But Hansei was filled with dread at that part of the tale, for he feared for Wulf that he had given shelter to the traitor, as he believed Bell-Hutten to be.
“Nay; but he is a fellow-man who risked his life for me,” Wulf said.
“But a black sinner was he, curst of God and men,” Hansei answered. “And what says the priest o’ Sundays? Is’t not that we should hate evil?”
“To hate evil, surely,” said Wulf, soberly; “yet not to forget, as we are men, where evil touches good; for this does it, at one point and another, even as never a bane groweth, here in the forest, but its unbane lives near neighbor to it. And it were foolishness, Hansei, if nothing more, to let the thought that he was a sinner hinder our helping a fellow in need.”