"Well, the prince loved his brother very much, and they lived together in the same castle, and passed their time pleasantly; they hunted together, and they made a little war, and then they made a little peace; and while the men at arms played at mutton-bones in the court-yard, the two lords played at chess in the hall--and I can tell you, that though the brother, won the first game, the prince won the second, and the jester stood by and laughed. Merrily passed, the time, and if men would but be contented in this world, life would be like a summer day, but the brother was always urging the prince to this war or that, for the glory of their house, as he called it; and sometimes he went himself, and sometimes he stayed at home to take care of the castle, while the prince followed his advice; and then the brother one day thought it would be a good thing for the prince to go and visit Jerusalem, and that it would be honourable, as he knew something of hard blows and of leading armies, to help the knights hospitallers and other sagacious men who were fighting for the pure pleasure of the thing, to get lands which they could not keep when they had got them. And the prince thought it a very good plan; and as he had got a great number of chests full of money, he went away to sow it in the fields of Syria, and to see if it would grow there. As he had a multitude of stout young men, too, who always required bleeding in the summer time, he took them with him, but as his brother was of a cold constitution, he left him at home to keep house. Now the prince having neither wife nor child, his dear brother was his heir."
"I see," said Ferdinand. "Go on, Herr!"
"Before they went," continued the jester, "the brother had a good deal of talk with some of the prince's followers, and told them how much he loved their dear lord. He did not say that he wished him dead; oh dear, no, that was not the way at all; but he told them all that he would do if he were prince, and how he would promote them, and left Sir Satan, the king of all evil imaginations, to deal with their consciences as he might find expedient. Well, the prince went away, and took with him his jester as his chief counsellor, though he never took his counsel either, for if he had he would have staid at home. But so they went on up by the Boden Sea, and then by the Vorarlberg and through the Tyrol, kissing the Emperor's hand at Inspruck, and then came to Venice, and there they had an audience of the Duke; and at Venice they staid a long time, for there was a fair Venetian lady that the prince loved passing well--" and the jester paused, and gazed thoughtfully into the fire for several moments.
"That has nothing to do with my tale, however," he continued, at length. "The prince went on, and after long journeying, he came to the place whither he was going; and though it was once a land flowing with milk and honey, very little honey and no milk was to be found there then. So, to keep down their appetites, he and his followers took to fighting in real earnest; one day, however, a certain officer of the prince, and a great friend of his brother's, brought him word that there were a number of Moslem in a valley not far from the castle where they were, and that if he would go out with his men, while the knights of the hospital guarded the castle, he might have them all as cheap as gudgeons. The prince had some doubts of his friend, and sent out for better intelligence, but finding that all that he said seemed very true, he got upon horseback, and sallied forth with his people. About three or four miles from the castle, however, he was suddenly surrounded and attacked on all sides by a number of the Moslem, of whom his officer had quite forgotten to tell him, though they had been watching there since daybreak. Nevertheless he fought tolerably well, considering he was a prince, and he and his men might perhaps have got out of the trap, by the force of impudence and a strong arm, if his friend the officer had not come behind him just then and struck him a gentle stroke, with something sharp, in the neck, about the place where the gorget joins the cuirass. Upon that the prince incontinent tumbled headlong off his horse; the Moslem closed in on all sides, and with their sharp scimeters sent the heads flying about like pippins shaken off a tree. All were killed or taken except one, who got through and galloped away, first carrying the news of the defeat to the knights of St. John in the castle, and then to the prince's brother at home."
"This was of course the traitor who murdered his lord," exclaimed Ferdinand, who had listened with ever-growing interest.
"Oh dear, no," replied the jester; "his friends the Moslem kept him, but thought he would be safer in two pieces, and so they separated his head from his shoulders."
"A very wise precaution," answered Ferdinand, "the true way of recompensing traitors. And what became of the jester? He was taken prisoner, I suppose?"
"Yes, he was," answered his companion. "But now listen; I am coming to the most curious part of my story, and that is the history of the prince's followers after they were dead. One clear, moonlight night, I have heard say, just as they were all lying in the rocky valley, where they had fallen, and their bones, well picked by the wild beasts of that country, were shining white amongst the bushes and large stones, there came suddenly amongst them a tall thin figure, like a shadow on the wall, through which you could see the rocks, and the branches, and the round-faced moon, just as if it had been the horn-plate of a lantern; and it stooped over the bones, and looked at them, and counted them one by one, and then it said to each fleshless head, separately,--'The man whose insinuations brought about your death, has strangled me in the vaults of his castle, though he knew that I was innocent. Rise up, then, all that were true to their prince, and come, let us to his brother's house, and plague him night and day,--at his board, and in his bed. Let us give him no rest so long as he remains upon the earth!'
"The moment he had spoken, slowly rising out of the ground, came a number of thin, shadowy figures, like himself, and they mounted calmly into the air, and floated away towards this land, just as you see a cloud rise out of the west, and soar slowly along, casting a shadow as it flies. Where they went to, and what they did, let the wise say; I know not. Only this I know, and that I heard from one who saw it, that the prince's followers, a great many years after they were killed and lying on the dry Syrian ground, rose up, man by man, each just like his own living self, and came away to their own land to torment their good lord's bad brother. One, indeed, remained behind, but he was the man who smote his prince in the neck when he was contending with the infidels; but doubtless the Moslem pickled him, for he was worth preserving, and salt meat keeps better than fresh, you know, Sir Ferdinand."