The advancing troops rode up to the raised drawbridge, displaying as they came the picturesque costume and swarthy face of the Bohemian marauder. The Lady Margaret's cheek was now deeply flushed, and the haughty spirit of her race flashed within her eyes and curled her lip in scorn.
"They are not a hundred," she said to the palmer, who stood at her side.
In reply, the palmer pointed to a body of men-at-arms, then emerging from a clump of trees in which they had been hitherto concealed. Her color fell at the sight of this new force—yet only for a moment: the next instant her cheek resumed its glow. This column, about a hundred strong, approached slowly and cautiously, as if expecting a sally, until they too had reached the moat.
"We call upon you to open your gates!" exclaimed a knight, who rode a little in advance.
"To whom?" replied the Lady Margaret, in a loud voice.
"To your rightful king and master, Henry of Austria!"
"We do not own a monarch," she returned, "who has forfeited the crown, and our gates shall be closed against all who come in his name."
"You refuse to surrender?"
"Yes!"
"Prepare then, for we will force a passage!"