“We shall go to the camp,” answered Ulenspiegel.
“They will get there all right, and by night if an opportunity offers” (and the host, whistling, made the gesture of a man cutting a throat). “Steel-wind will stop the blackbird Nassau from ever whistling again. Come on, something to drink, hey!”
“You are a gay fellow, even though you are married,” replied Ulenspiegel.
Said the host:
“I neither was nor am. I hold the secrets of princes. Drink up! My wife would steal them from my pillow to have me hanged and to be a widow sooner than Nature means it. Vive Dieu! they are coming ... where are the new passes? On my Christian heart. Let us drink! They are there, three hundred paces along the road, at Marche-les-Dames. Do ye see them? Let us drink!”
“Drink,” said Ulenspiegel. “I drink to the king, to the duke, to the preachers, to Steel-wind; I drink to you, to me; I drink to the wine and to the bottle. You are not drinking.” And at every health Ulenspiegel filled up his glass and the host emptied it.
Ulenspiegel studied him for some time; then rising up:
“He is asleep,” said he; “let us go, Lamme.”
When they were outside:
“He has no wife to betray us.... The night is about to come down.... You heard clearly what this rogue said, and you know who the three preachers are?”