“Yes, have a care,” said Ebbo, wearily; “and take care all due honour is shown to him! Good night, Heinz.”
“Gracious lady,” said Heinz, when by a sign he had intimated to her his desire of speaking with her unobserved by the Baron, “never fear; I know who the fellow is as well as you do. I shall be at the foot of the stairs, and woe to whoever tries to step up them past me.”
“There is no reason to apprehend treason, Heinz, yet to be on our guard can do no harm.”
“Nay, lady, I could look to the gear for the oubliette if you would speak the word.”
“For heaven’s sake, no, Heinz. This man has come hither trusting to our honour, and you could not do your lord a greater wrong, nor one that he could less pardon, than by any attempt on our guest.”
“Would that he had never eaten our bread!” muttered Heinz. “Vipers be they all, and who knows what may come next?”
“Watch, watch, Heinz; that is all,” implored Christina, “and, above all, not a word to any one else.”
And Christina dismissed the man-at-arms gruff and sullen, and herself retired ill at ease between fears of, and for, the unwelcome guest whose strange powers of fascination had rendered her, in his absence, doubly distrustful.
CHAPTER XXI
RITTER THEURDANK
The snow fell all night without ceasing, and was still falling on the morrow, when the guest explained his desire of paying a short visit to the young Baron, and then taking his departure. Christina would gladly have been quit of him, but she felt bound to remonstrate, for their mountain was absolutely impassable during a fall of snow, above all when accompanied by wind, since the drifts concealed fearful abysses, and the shifting masses insured destruction to the unwary wayfarer; nay, natives themselves had perished between the hamlet and the castle.