“Is that all?”
“Even if it were all, I think that such counsel is more in accordance with the honor of Swedish soldiers than barren jests at cups, or than sleeping after drinking-bouts. But that is not all. We should spread the report among our soldiers, and especially among the Poles, that the men at work now making a mine have discovered the old underground passage leading to the cloister and the church.”
“That is good counsel,” said Miller.
“When this report is spread among the soldiers and the Poles, the Poles themselves will persuade the monks to surrender, for it is a question with them as with the monks, that that nest of superstitions should remain intact.”
“For a Catholic that is not bad!” muttered Sadovski.
“If he served the Turks he would call Rome a nest of superstitions,” said the Prince of Hesse.
“Then, beyond doubt, the Poles will send envoys to the priests,” continued Count Veyhard,—“that party in the cloister, which is long anxious for surrender will renew its efforts under the influence of fear; and who knows but its members will force the prior and the stubborn to open the gates?”
“The city of Priam will perish through the cunning of the divine son of Laertes,” declaimed the Prince of Hesse.
“As God lives, a real Trojan history, and he thinks he has invented something new!” said Sadovski.
But the advice pleased Miller, for in very truth it was not bad. The party which the count spoke of existed really in the cloister. Even some priests of weaker soul belonged to it. Besides, fear might extend among the garrison, including even those who so far were ready to defend it to the last drop of blood.