"Why so?" asked Hornebog.
"Because the hand which guides the pen is never fit to handle the sword so as to make a good gash in the flesh; and when once the nonsense which is concocted by one single head, is written down, then at least a hundred others will muddle their brains with it. A hundred blockheads more make a hundred soldiers less, which is clearly enough our advantage, whenever we choose to make an invasion. 'As long as they write books and hold synods in the West, my children may safely carry their tents forwards!' that's what the great Attila himself said."
"Praised be the great Attila!" said Hornebog, reverently, when a voice called out, "Let the dead rest!" and with dancing steps, Erica came towards the two chieftains. She had mustered the cloister-booty, and an altar-cloth of red silk, finding grace in her eyes, she put it on like a mantle; the corners lightly thrown back over her shoulders.
"How do I look?" said she, turning her little head complacently about.
"The flower-of-the-heath does not require any tinsel belonging to Suabian idolators, to please us," sternly replied Ellak. Upon this, she jumped up at him, to pat and stroke his lank black hair, and then called out, "come along, the meal is ready prepared."
Then they went all three to the court-yard. All the hay which could be found, the Huns had strewn about, lying down on it and waiting for the repast. With crossed arms, Heribald stood in the background, looking down at them. "The heathenish dogs cannot even sit down like Christians, when they are about to eat their daily bread," he thought, taking good care, however, not to utter his thoughts aloud. The experience of former blows, had taught him silence.
"Lie down blackcoat, thou mayest eat also," cried Erica, making a sign to him to follow the example of the others. He looked at the man of Ellwangen, who was lying there with crossed legs, as if he had never known what it was to sit otherwise. So Heribald tried to follow his example; but he very soon got up again, as this position seemed too undignified to him. So he fetched a chair out of the monastery, and sat down upon it.
A whole ox had been roasted on a spit, and whatever else they had found in the cloister-kitchen, served to complete the repast; and they fell to, ravenously. The meat was cut off with their short sabres, the fingers serving as knife and fork. In the middle of the court-yard, the big wine-tun stood upright, everyone taking as much as he liked. Here and there, a finely wrought chalice was used as a drinking cup. Heribald also, had as much wine as he wished for, but when with inward contentment he was just beginning to sip at it, a half gnawed bone flew at his head. With a sorrowful look of surprise, he gazed up, and beheld that many another met with the same fate. To throw bones at each other, was a Hunnic custom, which served as dessert.
When the wine was beginning to tell on them, they began a rough and unmelodious singing. Two of the younger horsemen sang an old song in honour of King Attila, in which it was said, that he had not only been a conqueror with the sword, but also a conqueror of hearts. Then followed a taunting verse, on a Roman Emperor's sister, who, charmed with him by hearsay, fell in love with him at a distance, and offered her heart and hand to him, which however he refused.
The chorus which followed it, strongly resembled the screeching of owls and the croaking of toads. When this was finished, some of the men approached Heribald, and made him understand that he also was expected to give them a song. He began to refuse, but this availed him nothing. So he sang in an almost sobbing voice, the antiphon in honour of the holy cross, beginning with the "sanctifica nos."