To Wulf the whole changed scene seemed like a dream, so familiar the place, yet so strange—as one in sleep finds some place that he knows well puzzle him by some unwonted aspect. He stood watching the soldiers feeding here and there about the bailey, when there came two squires from the keep, leading between them a bent and piteous figure.
It was a man who cowered and blinked and sought to cover his dazzled eyes from the unwonted light of day. Him the soldiers brought before the emperor, and on the moment Wulf knew that face to be the one which he had seen at the barred window of the keep on the day when he had climbed the tower.
“What is this?” demanded Rudolf, as he looked the woeful figure up and down. Scarce bore it likeness to a man, so unkempt and terrible was its aspect, so drawn and wan the face, wherein no light of reason showed.
“We know not, your Majesty,” one of the squires replied; “but we found him in a cell high up in the keep, chained by the ankle to a stone bench, and I broke the fetter with a sledge.”
By now the nobles and knights of Rudolf’s army were gathered about; but none spoke, for pity. Then the emperor caused all the knights of the Swartzburg to be summoned, and he questioned them close, but not one of them knew who the man might be, or why he was a prisoner at the Swartzburg. Indeed, of all the company, only one or two knew that such a prisoner had been held in the keep. Of the two men who might have told his name, one lay dead in the great hall, and one was riding from the Swartzburg, an outlaw.
But the emperor was troubled. A haunting something in that seemingly empty face drew his very heartstrings, and fain would he have known the man’s name. Then suddenly through the press of knights and nobles rushed Karl the armorer, and clasped the woeful figure in his arms, while he trembled and sobbed with wrath and sorrow.
“Oh, my lord!” he cried, bringing the man closer before Rudolf. “Look upon this! Knowest thou not who ’tis?”
The emperor had grown very white, and he passed one hand over his eyes.
“Nay,” he said; “it is never—it cannot be—”
“Oh, my lord! my lord!” sobbed the armorer, his great chest heaving and the tears streaming down from his unashamed eyes. “It is the count—Count Bernard himself, thine old comrade, whom thou and I didst love. Look upon him!”