"Are there strangers there? Has any one come from Tarow?"
"No one," said Blasius. "No one is there; but the host's niece is come to him, Rebecca, the Jewish maiden." Meanwhile he looked steadfastly at Lenore, as though it were to her that he had to deliver his report.
Lenore stepped to the table, poured out a glass of punch, and gave it to the youth, who received it with delight, quaffed it, set down the glass, and bent again at the lady's knee with a grace that a prince might have envied.
"You need never fear," cried he. "No one in the village will harm you; if any one offended you, we would kill him at once."
Lenore blushed and said, looking at Anton the while, "You know I have no fear, at all events of you;" and Karl dismissed the messenger with orders to return in an hour. As he left the room, Lenore said to Anton, "How graceful his bearing is!"
"He was in the Guards," replied Anton, "and is not the worst lad in the village; but I pray you not to rely too much upon the chivalry of the worthy Blasius and his friends. I was uneasy about you again all the afternoon, and sent your maid to meet you on the Rosmin road; for a traveling apprentice came running to the castle, frightened out of his senses, saying that he had been detained by an armed lady, and obliged to produce his passport. According to his story, the lady had a monstrous dog, as large as a cow, with her, and he complained that her aspect was awful. The poor man was positively beside himself."
"He was a craven," said Lenore, contemptuously. "As soon as he saw me with the pony he ran off, scared by his own bad conscience. Then I called after him, and threatened him with my pocket pistol."
In this manner the dwellers on the baron's estate daily awaited the outbreak of the insurrection on their own oasis. Meanwhile it spread like a conflagration over the whole province. Wherever the Poles were thickly congregated, the flames leaped up fiercely. On the borders, they flared unsteadily here and there, like fire in green wood. In many places they seemed quenched for a long time, then suddenly broke out again.
One Sunday afternoon there was to be a great drill of the united forces. The men of Neudorf and Kunau came with their flags—the foot-soldiers first, the mounted behind—the small band of cavalry from the castle riding to meet them, led by Karl, together with some men on foot, at whose head marched the forester, the generalissimo of all the troops. Even Anton was under his command. When Lenore saw them set out, she ordered her pony to be saddled.
"I will look on," said she to Anton.