Having, with some difficulty, secured one of the horses, and with still more trouble succeeded in seating himself in the saddle—for, as he said, he was more accustomed to the broad of his foot than the back of a horse—he followed his leader, who, with grave anxiety, was scanning the river bank opposite Alken, hoping to see some indication of the Countess emerging from the forest.
"Archer," said Rodolph, turning to his follower, "your great skill, and no less indomitable courage, has to-day saved my life, and has placed me otherwise under more obligation to you than you can easily estimate. I hope yet to make good my debt, but in the meantime I may cheer your heart by telling you that your expert bowmanship has made inevitable what was before extremely probable, which is, that these valleys will shortly ring with war, and the Lord only knows when the conflict shall cease—possibly not until yonder castle is destroyed, or the Archbishop returns defeated to Treves."
"Say you so, my Lord? Then indeed is virtue rewarded, as I have always been taught, though seeing little confirmation of it in my wandering over this earth. I winged my shafts for the pure pleasure of seeing them speed, not forgetting my duty to you in the earning of my threepence a day, duly advanced into my palm before service was asked, the which, I know to my grief, is not customary among nobles, although fair encouragement in spoils gives compensation for backwardness in pay; still I had no hope for such outcome as war, when I drew string to ear, and am the more encouraged to think that a wholesome act, thus unselfishly accomplished, brings fitting recompense so trippingly on its trail. You spoke of the Archbishop (God bless his Lordship), do I fight, think you, for, or against him?"
"As the man you have so recently overturned is the friend, favourite, and in general the right hand of the Archbishop, judge you in which camp your neck is hereafter the safer."
"I have long desired to fight for the Church, but, for a devout man, it seems ever my fate to be on the opposite side. Ah well, it matters little, and it serves the Archbishop right for the inhospitality of his gate at Treves, where they know not a useful soldier when they see one. We are like to be beleaguered in yon castle then?"
"Very like, indeed."
"Know you aught of how they are provisioned for a siege?"
"That will be among the first things I shall inquire when I enter."
"It is a most important particular, and in the inquiry it might not be a waste of breath to give some hint regarding the plenishing of the wine vaults."
"I understand Black Heinrich has a secret passage to the river, so we are not likely to suffer from thirst."