As the motor began to climb a rather steep gradient, the silent sentry, with a wave of his hand, introduced me to the outer battlements of the Festung Marienberg. Between this outer wall and the castle moat, the long steep slope on the west side has been laid out as a garden with shrubs and well-grown trees. "There," said my sentry, "is where the officers can make their daily promenade." This I need hardly say was not to be our privilege. The second wall is of great thickness, so that the entrance is like a tunnel, the gradient of the road being so steep as to bring the car down to the first speed. We cross a courtyard with stables on the three sides, and then pass through a third doorway, and drive over the moat into the main court of the castle.
This inner court, of oblong shape, is some 60 to 70 yards long and about 30 broad.
On two sides were the soldiers' quarters, built in the middle of the eighteenth century. The ground floor on the left was used as a stable, and above the stables were the prisoners' rooms. A fifteenth-century chapel stands in the far corner on the site chosen by St Kilian. An aggressive watch-tower, dating from the eleventh century if not earlier, tall and massive, is the most interesting feature in the curious medley of architecture, which presents a graphic picture of the castle's history.
The motor drew up at the far end of the court. I was then helped out of the car and formally handed over to a German N.C.O. named Poerringer, who had charge of the prisoners, collected their letters, &c., &c.,—in fact he was our jailor.
The Courtyard and Chapel, Festung Marienberg.
We entered the fortress buildings through a small doorway in one of the old towers, and the broad spiral stairway proved almost too much for my powers of locomotion. However, with a helping arm under each shoulder, they got me along. Half-way up the stair we turned through a door on our right, which led into a large and very medieval-looking guard-room, a long, low room faintly lit up by narrow windows deeply set in immensely thick walls. In one of these window recesses was a desk and chair barred off from the rest of the room with temporary wooden cross-bars. I was led into this cage, and told to sit down and wait to be interviewed by Mr Poerringer. My luggage was brought up and put down beside me, and a sentry took his position near at hand.
After a few minutes' rest I began to look around, and as my eyes got used to the dim light I saw my friend the French doctor sitting on a chair farther up the room within speaking distance. A thoughtless Bonjour, Docteur, raised the wrath of the sentry, who turned in my direction and grunted out a sentence which ended in verboten.
The guard-room then began to fill with soldiers; the loud tramping, the guttural words of command, the curious antique unmilitary-looking uniform, the crowd of squat, slouching, and for the most part bearded, round-bellied creatures, formed in the dim light a picture that might have belonged to a land of gnomes, wicked princes, and enchanted castles.
Such at least was my first impression. Our middle-aged sentries in broad daylight were anything but romantic. Their uniform consisted of Hessian boots, civilian trousers, and dirty green jacket, and always a big black leather belt to keep in the rebellious stomach. They appeared most of them to be wood-cutters, charcoal-burners, workers in the beautiful forests of Franconia, who did not take kindly to the monotonous duty of guarding prisoners, and to a discipline little less strict than that of the prisoners themselves.