"Help! Turn out the guard! Treason! Treason!"
Along the top of the battlements were heard the hurried footsteps of the sentinel, who cried as he ran:
"An attack! To arms; to arms!"
The keen-witted captain saw that not a moment was to be lost, or destruction would fall on him. He turned savagely to the envoys and said:
"Fly at once. Leave me to deal with this. You must not be seen."
The ambassadors, nothing loth to be quit of a situation so unforeseen and so dangerous, fled to the plantation and disappeared. Steinmetz easily parried the blows of Conrad, who was unused to the handling of a sword, and when the sentinel looked over the wall, the captain said, sternly and authoritatively:
"Cease your foolish shouting. Open the gates and send me here six armed men as quickly as possible. Then come and stand on the wall at this corner. I have other commands for you."
"Shall I call his Lordship the Count?"
"No. Obey at once, and attend strictly to what I have said to you."
The sentinel departed, trailing his pike behind him. A few moments later the six men with drawn swords came running along the western wall, to the spot where their master was holding off the infuriated Conrad.