"You had better see the two men, my Lord Count," said Ferdinand. "I will fetch them up from the abbey in an hour, and you can question them yourself."
"No, you will stay where you are, Sir," replied his lord, sharply; "I can question them myself without your help. I will see these hoof-marks too. But tell me more; from the sounds I heard as I hurried from my bed, there must have been a whole host of followers with this Black Huntsman. What said the man?"
In return, Ferdinand gave as good an account as he could of all that had occurred, though he had little to add to what he had told before. He neither exaggerated nor coloured his narrative, but with the vice of youth he indulged in many a figure to express his meaning, as was indeed somewhat customary with him; drawing freely upon imagination for the language, though not for the facts. This mode, however, of telling his tale, did not altogether please his lord, upon whose brow an impatient frown gathered fast. But Adelaide paid his flights of fancy with a smile, and her father's anger was averted by a man coming in hastily from the walls to announce that some one who seemed a messenger was riding up at full speed towards the castle.
"Let him be brought in," replied the Count; and he added, with a laugh, "perhaps this may be news of the Black Huntsman."
Expectation is ever a silent mood; and the meal continued; even the wine circulated without anything more being said, till at length a man dirty with hard riding through a country still wet with the storm of the preceding night, was brought in, with formal ceremony, by two of the Count's attendants, and led to the table at which he sat. The stranger seemed a simple messenger in the garb of peace, and in his hand he bore one of the large folded letters of the day, inscribed with innumerable titles then and still given to every German nobleman of rank, and sealed with a broad seal of yellow wax.
"Who come you from?" demanded the Count, before he opened the letter which the messenger presented.
"From the high and mighty prince, Count Frederick of Leiningen," replied the man; "who bade me bear this letter to the noble and excellent lord, the Count of Ehrenstein, his old and valued friend, and bring him back an answer speedily."
"Ah! where is the Count?" exclaimed the lord of Ehrenstein; "when came he back? 'Tis many a year since we have met."
"He stopped last night, noble Sir, at an abbey some ten miles beyond Zweibrücken, and he will reach that place this day," replied the messenger, answering only one of the Count's questions. "I pray you read the letter and let me have my answer."
The Count cut the silk, and, unfolding the paper, read, while Seckendorf commented in a low tone, with words of admiration, but with something like a sneer upon his lip, at his lord's learning, which enabled him to gather easily the contents of what seemed a somewhat lengthy epistle.