‘I will stay with you,’ said Rex, who seemed jovially inclined.
Neither Greif nor the second thought it their business to suggest that their combatant had better get some rest before the battle. When two o’clock struck, Rex was teaching them all a new song, which was not in the book, his clear strong voice ringing out steadily and tunefully through the smoky chamber, his smooth complexion neither flushed nor pale from the night’s carousal, his stony eyes as colourless and forbidding, as his smile was genial and unaffected.
As they rose to go, he caught sight of a huge silver-mounted horn that hung behind his chair.
‘I will drink that out to-morrow night, with your permission,’ he said with a light laugh.
‘Bravo!’ shouted the excited chorus.
‘He is a little drunk,’ whispered the student whom Bauer had wounded, addressing his neighbour.
‘Or a boaster, who will back down the floor,’ answered the other shrugging his shoulders.
‘I hope you may do it,’ said the first speaker aloud and turning to Rex. ‘If you do, I will empty it after you to your health, and so will every Swabian here.’
‘Ay, that will we!’ exclaimed Greif, and the others joined readily in the promise. Seeing how probable it was that by the next evening Rex would be in bed, with a bag of ice on his head, it was not likely that they would be called upon to perform the feat.
‘It is a beer-oath then!’ said Rex. ‘Let us go and fight.’