The one-eyed Hans said nothing.
Just then came the noise of men s voices in the corridor and the shuffle and scuffle of feet carrying a heavy load. Nearer and nearer they came, and one-eyed Hans stood aside. Six men came struggling through the doorway, carrying a litter, and on the litter lay the great Baron Conrad. The flaming torch thrust into the iron bracket against the wall flashed up with the draught of air from the open door, and the light fell upon the white face and the closed eyes, and showed upon his body armor a great red stain that was not the stain of rust.
Suddenly Ursela cried out in a sharp, shrill voice, “Catch her, she falls!”
It was the Baroness.
Then the old crone turned fiercely upon the one-eyed Hans. “Thou fool!” she cried, “why didst thou bring him here? Thou hast killed thy lady!”
“I did not know,” said the one-eyed Hans, stupidly.
III. How the Baron came Home Shorn.
But Baron Conrad was not dead. For days he lay upon his hard bed, now muttering incoherent words beneath his red beard, now raving fiercely with the fever of his wound. But one day he woke again to the things about him.
He turned his head first to the one side and then to the other; there sat Schwartz Carl and the one-eyed Hans. Two or three other retainers stood by a great window that looked out into the courtyard beneath, jesting and laughing together in low tones, and one lay upon the heavy oaken bench that stood along by the wall snoring in his sleep.