"I can hold it for a couple of hours," he replied, "which is all that Meyer requires of me. We are to put as many of the enemy out of action as we can, and then yield possession with a bad grace. After that we have a little surprise for them: a couple of concealed mortars, which will blow the historic old fabric and those inside it into several thousand fragments."
Mrs. Saunders suppressed a shudder.
"And are they sure to attack the Marienkastel?" she asked.
"Absolutely certain," he replied, "if they know the rudiments of military science. Besides, there are sentimental reasons for their doing so, for the old Schloss is the ancestral home of the Schattenbergs."
Mrs. Saunders was silent for a moment; then she spoke, hesitatingly, but with a forced calm.
"And will your position—be a very dangerous one?" she asked.
"Fairly so," he replied lightly. "You see, we shall have to bear the brunt of the main attack, and we shall hang on as long as we can. But it is in the evacuation that we shall probably lose most heavily."
Mrs. Saunders nodded sagely.
"And it is in the subsequent bombardment that the enemy will suffer most severely?" she inquired.
"Precisely. It will mean turning the fine old place into a shambles, but we must strike hard or not at all; and Karl's blood is up, as it was in 1904."