She opened a cupboard, and searching about amongst her trinkets and other small things, took out a tiny slate, on which were scrawled a few letters. "That you are to say to him, besides giving him my kindest greetings."
Ekkehard looked at the slate. It contained only the two insignificant Latin words, "neque enim!"--nothing else.
"That has no meaning," said he.
"Never mind, the old man knows well, what it means for him."
Before cockcrow the next morning, Ekkehard passed out of the gate on the Hohentwiel, on horseback. The fresh morning air blew about his head, over which he now drew his hood. "Why has Heaven not made you a warrior; many things would be better then." These words of the Duchess accompanied him, like his own shadow. They were for him a spur to courageous resolutions. "When danger comes, she shall not find the schoolmaster, sitting behind his books," thought he.
His horse went on at a good pace. In a few hours, he rode over the woody hills, that separate the Untersee from the lake of Ueberlingen. At the ducal tenement of Sernatingen, the blue mirror of the lake lay stretched out before his eyes. There he left his horse in the care of the steward, and continued the path leading along the shore, on foot.
At a projecting point, he stopped a while, to gaze at leisure at the fine view before him. The eye, here meeting with no obstacle, could glance over the waters to the distant Rhætian Alps, which like a crystal wall, rise heavenwards; forming the background of the landscape.
Where the rocks of red sandstone steeply arise out of the lake, the path mounted upwards. Steps, hewn in the rocks, made the ascent easier. Here and there, apertures serving as windows, broke the uniformity of the walls; indicating by their deep shadows, the places, where in the times of the Roman supremacy, unknown men, had dug these caverns as an asylum, in the same way as the catacombs.
The ascent was fatiguing enough. Now he had reached a level, only a few steps in circumference, on which young grass was growing. In front, there was an entrance into the rock, about the height of a man. Out of this, there now rushed, violently barking, a huge black dog, which stopping short about two paces from Ekkehard, held itself ready with teeth and fangs to fly at him; keeping its eyes steadily fixed on the monk, who could not move, without risk of the dog's attacking him. His position was certainly not an enviable one; retreat being impossible, and Ekkehard not carrying arms about him. So he remained immovable, facing his enemy; when at an opening, there appeared the head of a man, with grey hair, piercing eyes, and a reddish beard.
"Call back the dog!" cried Ekkehard.