Henry of Trutz-Drachen grasped at his horse’s mane, but the attack was so fierce, so sudden, and so unexpected that before he could save himself he was dragged to one side and fell crashing in his armor upon the stone roadway of the bridge.
“The dragon! the dragon!” roared Baron Conrad, in a voice of thunder, and with the energy of despair he dragged his prostrate foe toward the open side of the bridge.
“Forward!” cried the chief of the Trutz-Drachen men, and down they rode upon the struggling knights to the rescue of their master in this new danger. But they were too late.
There was a pause at the edge of the bridge, for Baron Henry had gained his feet and, stunned and bewildered as he was by the suddenness of his fall, he was now struggling fiercely, desperately. For a moment they stood swaying backward and forward, clasped in one another’s arms, the blood from the wounded man’s breast staining the armor of both. The moment passed and then, with a shower of stones and mortar from beneath their iron-shod heels, they toppled and fell; there was a thunderous splash in the water below, and as the men-at-arms came hurrying up and peered with awe-struck faces over the parapet of the bridge, they saw the whirling eddies sweep down with the current of the stream, a few bubbles rise to the surface of the water, and then—nothing; for the smooth river flowed onward as silently as ever.
Presently a loud voice burst through the awed hush that followed. It came from William of Roderburg, Baron Henry’s kinsman.
“Forward!” he cried. A murmur of voices from the others was all the answer that he received. “Forward!” cried the young man again, “the boy and those with him are not so far away but that we might yet catch up with them.”
Then one of the men spoke up in answer—a man with a seamed, weather-beaten face and crisp grizzled hair. “Nay,” said he, “our Lord Baron is gone, and this is no quarrel of ours; here be four of us that are wounded and three I misdoubt that are dead; why should we follow further only to suffer more blows for no gain?” A growl of assent rose from those that stood around, and William of Roderburg saw that nothing more was to be done by the Trutz-Dragons that day.
XIV. How Otto Saw the Great Emperor.
Through weakness and sickness and faintness, Otto had lain in a half swoon through all that long journey under the hot May sun. It was as in a dreadful nightmare that he had heard on and on and on that monotonous throbbing of galloping hoofs upon the ground; had felt that last kiss that his father had given him upon his cheek. Then the onward ride again, until all faded away into a dull mist and he knew no more. When next he woke it was with the pungent smell of burned vinegar in his nostrils and with the feeling of a cool napkin bathing his brow. He opened his eyes and then closed them again, thinking he must have been in a dream, for he lay in his old room at the peaceful monastery of the White Cross on the hill; the good Father Abbot sat near by, gazing upon his face with the old absent student look, Brother John sat in the deep window seat also gazing at him, and Brother Theodore, the leech of the monastery, sat beside him bathing his head. Beside these old familiar faces were the faces of those who had been with him in that long flight; the One-eyed Hans, old Master Nicholas his kinsman, and the others. So he closed his eyes, thinking that maybe it was all a dream. But the sharp throbbing of the poor stump at his wrist soon taught him that he was still awake.