“Swear it distinctly, Sir Baron,” said Heinz. “We have all too deep a debt of vengeance to let off any one who comes here lurking in the interest of our foe. Swear that this is Theurdank, or we send his head to greet his friends.”
Drops stood on Ebbo’s brow, and his breath laboured as he felt his senses reeling, and his powers of defence for his guest failing him. Even should the stranger confess his name, the people of the castle might not believe him; and here he stood like one indifferent, evidently measuring how far his young host would go in his cause.
“I cannot swear that his real name is Theurdank,” said Ebbo, rallying his forces, “but this I swear, that he is neither friend nor fosterer of Schlangenwald, that I know him, and I had rather die than that the slightest indignity were offered him.” Here, and with a great effort that terribly wrenched his wounded leg, he reached past Heinz, and grasped his guest’s hand, pulling him as near as he could.
“Sir,” he said, “if they try to lay hands on you, strike my death-blow!”
A bugle-horn was wound outside. The men stood daunted—Christina in extreme terror for her son, who lay gasping, breathless, but still clutching the stranger’s hand, and with eyes of fire glaring on the mutinous warriors. Another bugle-blast! Heinz was almost in the act of grappling with the silent foe, and Koppel cried as he raised his halbert, “Now or never!” but paused.
“Never, so please you,” said the strange guest. “What if your young lord could not forswear himself that my name is Theurdank! Are you foes to all the world save Theurdank?”
“No masking,” said Heinz, sternly. “Tell your true name as an honest man, and we will judge whether you be friend or foe.”
“My name is a mouthful, as your master knows,” said the guest, slowly, looking with strangely amused eyes on the confused lanzknechts, who were trying to devour their rage. “I was baptized Maximilianus; Archduke of Austria, by birth; by choice of the Germans, King of the Romans.”
“The Kaisar!”
Christina dropped on her knee; the men-at-arms tumbled backwards; Ebbo pressed the hand he held to his lips, and fainted away. The bugle sounded for the third time.