"Should I not be a fool to trust you living," asked the Count, "when you can use such threats to me?"
"Oh, dear! no," answered his prisoner; "whatever I have done, I have never broken an oath in my life; and I am quite ready to relieve you from all fears, upon certain conditions."
"Ha!" said the Count, "what may they be?"
"First, that you will give me the means of escape," answered the Baron.
"At the present moment that is impossible," replied the Count; "but to-night it may be done. What more?"
"Secondly, I must have some small sum of gold to get me together a band in some distant country. If I were to go wandering about here without my stone walls around me, I should soon be caught, and I have no mind to find myself embroiled with the Imperial Court. I will be content with a small amount; and the third condition is, that you deal not harshly with that youth Ferdinand. On my life! I believe he neither knows nor suspects anything from what I said. He seemed not to heed it, as if he thought you to be too honest a man to do aught that was wrong. He paid much more attention to what I said concerning Count Frederick, and Martin of Dillberg--he marked that right well."
"Ay, and what was that?" asked the Count.
"Why, I told him how that same Martin came to me, and, upon promise of a share of the booty, warned me of the passage of those Italian merchants. Faith! they came sooner than he expected; for he said, some three weeks hence. But I kept a sharp watch, for fear of accidents, and an unlucky watch it has turned out: for Count Frederick has got all the money, and the castle to boot."
The Count mused for a few moments, with his arms crossed upon his chest, and then replied, "Well, we shall see. Leave the youth to me; I promise that he shall suffer nothing on your account. The money you shall have, and freedom too, if you can give me such a pledge as I can depend upon."
"I can give you nought else than my oath, Sir Count," answered the Baron, stoutly, "You have taken all else from me. The pig has nothing but the pig's skin."