"I shall not honour you by fighting with you, a nameless stranger, for whose quality no one can vouch."
"I bore the honour you formerly bestowed upon me modestly enough, and no one has been told of our encounter. As for the quality of my fighting, you made no complaint at the time."
"I will imprison you as an insubordinate traitor."
"I am even prepared for that, and have been ever since I took my quarters in the tower. The moment you break your word with me I constitute myself my own jailer, and will retire to the tower. There my archer will kill your adherents one by one in the courtyard, or on the battlements, or wherever you dare show yourselves. I will haul down your banner and run up a flag of truce instead. Then, when the envoys of the Archbishop come, I will shout to them from the tower that we are commanded by a madman. I will make terms with them so far as the ladies are concerned, and will tell them how to take the castle, as not one of your men dare show face upon the walls, fearing my archer. I regret being compelled to show you that you are both helpless and, at the same time, a fool, but you would have it. Now, my Lord, what is to be done? Are you content to hold command under my orders, or am I to be further troubled with your petulance, so that I must humiliate you in the eyes of your own men, depose you publicly, and perhaps imprison you in the castle I would be only too glad to have you hold and keep? I must know definitely and finally, for these discussions cannot continue."
The Black Count rested his shaggy head in his hands, and for a long time there was silence in the room. At last he raised his blood-shot eyes, burning with hate, and shot a question at Rodolph.
"Who are you?"
"Your master. Take that for granted until this siege is ended, then you may discover you have not been in error. If you attempt to fight me as well as the Archbishops the contest will be a short one. In the fiend's name, has your ill temper not left enough of sense in your brain to show you, even in your anger, that it is better to have me fighting for you than against you? Your persistent stupidity exhausts my patience."
"What am I to tell the men whom I have ordered to clear the sacks from the gate? They will think me indeed mad if I bid them reverse their work."
"They think it now, as does every one with whom you come in contact. When the grain is all removed tell them to fill the empty sacks with earth and stones from the cellars, and to place them in position against the gates again. Have this done whenever a sack is emptied in future, so that our consumption of corn will not interfere with the security of the gates. If you have said to any one that you intended to sally forth, tell him now that you have changed your mind."
This was the last rebellion of Count Heinrich against the usurper within his gates. The ladies, when all met together for the evening meal, did not suspect that there had been any difference between the two men, for Heinrich was invariably so gruff towards his women folk that his demeanour could hardly be made worse by any check he had encountered during the day, and Rodolph's manner was marked by a deferential equanimity that was immutable.