The long red scarf hung just above their heads from the iron railing of the balcony.
"As I live, my faithful Aagé; I heard him bemoan himself above there," said the king eagerly, without heeding the warning, and hastened up the stair; but Count Henrik rushed after him and seized his arm ere he reached the uppermost landing. They both stopped as in amazement, and at the same moment uttered a cry of horror on seeing the unhappy Drost lie deadly pale and bleeding at the top of the staircase.
"Dead! dead!" cried the king, and was hastening up to him; but Count Henrik still detained him, while he himself sprang forward, and tramped on every step of the hollow stair. Aagé opened his eyes, and recognised the king. "Back from the grave, my liege!" he called with a faint voice, as he rolled himself forward to the king's feet, and clasped his knees. "Aagé! great Heavens! what is this?" exclaimed the king, and raised him in his arms. At the same instant the door of the hall of the upper story opened, and a tall, steel-clad knight, disarmed, and with an uncovered and hoary head, stepped across the balcony, and took his stand on the uppermost landing of the stair. "You stand beside a grave, King Eric!" he said in a terrific voice; "I had prepared it for you; but a higher power presides here; now shall it open, and swallow me up before your eyes." He stamped with all his might on the rocking and creaking trap-door under his feet. "Ha! why tarriest thou, slave?" he shouted in a voice of thunder. "Away with the bolt; draw it quick."
"No, no, in the name of a merciful Heaven!" said a beseeching voice from the castle cellar far beneath him; "I cannot; I would sooner be perjured and eternally damned."
"What is all this?" asked the king in the greatest amazement. "Doth that man rave? Who is he?"
"The commandant of the castle, my liege," answered Count Henrik, who stood with his drawn sword before the king, and with the one foot on the trap-door.
"Bind that madman," commanded the king to the knights nearest him, without withdrawing his gaze from the signs of returning life in Aagé's face. He bore him himself in his arms, with Count Henrik's assistance, over the creaking trap-door, and over the balcony, into the upper hall. As soon as Count Henrik had seen the Drost and the king in safety he hastened back to the shouting men-at-arms, to secure and guard all the entrances, and prevent any disorder from the disarming of the garrison. It was not till the king saw that Aagé's consciousness was returning, and that his limbs, however bruised, still were not seriously injured, that he looked towards the knights who surrounded him, and assisted in tending the Drost. At the door of the antechamber stood the tall commandant of the castle, with his arms tied behind his back, between two halberdiers; he gazed before him, mute and pale, as a marble statue. "Had I such a master to die for!" he muttered in a deep and hardly audible voice, and a tear rolled down between the furrows of the aged warrior's haughty and unmoved countenance.
Count Henrik soon re-entered the hall with hasty steps. "My liege," he said aloud, "the margrave is without the gate; the highborn junker is with him. They entreat your grace to withhold your stern sentence and wrath, and hear what the prince hath to say in his defence."
"Let him step hither instantly," commanded the king, and the sternness of his countenance seemed mingled with profound sorrow. "The hour of judgment is come," he added; "but I condemn no one unheard."
Count Henrik bowed in silence and departed. A deathlike stillness prevailed in the chamber. Drost Aagé reposed, pale and bleeding, on a bench, with his head leaning on the king's breast, and appeared as yet not to have fully recovered his consciousness after his shattering and stunning fall. His temples had been chafed with wine; at a signal from the king he was carried into the ladies' apartment, that he might repose in quiet, and be more carefully tended. As he was borne off the king pressed his feeble hand, and looked on him with affection and sadness. Aagé gazed fixedly and anxiously upon the king. "Remember you are to pass sentence on a brother," he whispered in a faint voice. He would have said more, but the king motioned to him to be silent, and turned from him as he hastily passed his hand over his high and glowing forehead.