Some further conversation followed on the same subject; but we must now turn to pursue the course of the nobleman who had quitted them a short time before.
As the Count of Ehrenstein turned away, after bidding his friend adieu, he murmured to himself, "Now, may good luck send that old Karl von Mosbach takes the hint I gave him; but whether he do or not, it shall make no difference. If Frederick of Leiningen holds his resolution, and puts his shrewd follower to death, the same axe shall serve for Ferdinand of Altenburg."
When he reached his chamber, however, he found old Karl von Mosbach waiting for the promised order, and dismissing him with disappointed petulance, the Count paused, and thought for several minutes, and then visited his daughter's chamber, as we have seen. The interview moved him more than he suffered to appear, though it did not shake his resolution; and when he returned to his own chamber, he dismissed the servants who were waiting, and sat down by the table to think. "What is it," he said to himself, "that makes me feel thus regarding this youth? What is it that has always made me feel so strangely? Loving and hating him at the same time, trusting and doubting him, relying upon him yet fearing him. It seems as if nature warned me to beware lest he should work me some great evil. He has done so, and he shall die; then he can do no more; but yet it is marvellous what a reluctance I have to shed his blood--and yet I seem to thirst for it. Am I growing weak and womanly, that my just purposes should thus shake me? It shall be so no more. He dies, and then there is an end of doubts. I will hie me to bed, and not think of it."
Undressing himself in haste, he extinguished the light, and cast himself upon his bed; but his head had scarcely pressed the pillow, when a voice repeated three times, "William of Ehrenstein!"
"What is it? Who calls?" cried the Count, starting up.
"One of the dead," answered the voice. "Know you not the tongue?"
"I do," replied the Count. "It is amongst the sounds of my boyhood. Why call you me?"
"I summon you to judgment," answered the voice. "As you judge, so shall you be judged. In the great hall of the castle, before my chair of state, under the banners of our fathers, in the presence of knights and holy men who shed their blood for the deliverance of Christ's sepulchre, I call you to your judgment. See that you be there, or sentence shall pass against you, which there is no power on the earth, or under the earth, to revoke. Make your peace with Heaven; for you have had your time, and it is passing away."
The large drops of perspiration rolled from the forehead of the Count, and grasping the side of the bed firmly with his hand, as if to give him strength, he asked, "Who shall intercede for me?"
"In Heaven, we have all an Intercessor," answered the voice; "on earth, intercession is vain. Appear at the judgment-seat as you are called, receive your doom, send for the priest, and prepare."