"I await your answer to as much as I have already cited."
"The Countess Tekla is of my blood, but somewhat contaminated, I admit, by the fact that her father was your predecessor in the Archbishop's favour. She was Arnold's ward, betrothed to you, his menial. She was in your hands at the capital city of the Archbishop, surrounded by spies and environed by troops. If then the girl has the wit to elude you all, baffle pursuit, and arrive unscathed in Thuron, she is even more my relative than I had given her credit for, and now the chief loser in the game comes yelping here to me like a whipped spaniel, crying 'Give her up.' God's wounds, why should I? She will but trick you again and be elsewhere to seek."
"I demand your plain answer, yes or no, to be given at your peril!"
"There is no peril in dealing with so stupid a band as that at Treves, whose head a simple girl may cozen and whose chief warrior, mounted and encased in iron an unarmoured foot-soldier can overthrow. By the three Kings, you strut here in my hall with jingling spurs which you have no right to wear. You know the rules of chivalry; give up your horse, your armour and your sword to the archer who rightfully owns them, having won them in fair field. When thus you have purged yourself of dishonesty, I will lend you a horse to carry my answer back to Treves, which is as follows: Tell the Archbishop that the maiden is in my castle of Thuron. If he want her, let him come and take her."
The colour had returned in more than its usual volume to the pale face of Count Bertrich as he listened to this contemptuous speech, but he made no reply until he had withdrawn the gauntlet from his hand: then, flinging it at the feet of the Black Count, he cried:
"There lies the gauge of my Lord Archbishop of Treves, and when Thuron Castle is blazing, I shall beg of his Lordship to allow me to superintend the hanging of the pirate who now inhabits it."
Heinrich threw back his head with a rasping bark that stood him in place of a laugh.
"Indeed, my Lord, you have the true hangman's favour, and I marvel not the girl fled from you. I am, as you say, somewhat of a pirate, but with more honesty in me than passes current in Treves, so I cannot lift the gauge without leave of its real owner. Steinmetz, bring here the archer with his bow."
When the wonder-stricken archer appeared, grasping his weapon, his mouth full, for he had been reluctantly haled from a groaning board, he looked with some apprehension at the Black Count, expecting a recantation of the promise wrung from him.