The lieutenants, with one impulse, advanced to their Commander, who frowned as they did so. A cry of despair went up from the pinioned men, but Kurzbold shouted:
“Cut him down, Ebearhard, and then release us. In the name of the guild I call on you to act! He is unarmed; cut him down! ‘Tis foul murder to desert us thus.”
The cutting down could easily have been accomplished, for Roland stood at their mercy, weaponless since the émeute on the barge. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the occasion, the optimistic Ebearhard laughed, although every one else was grave enough.
“Thank you, Kurzbold, for your suggestion. We have come forward, not to use force, but to try persuasion. Roland, you cannot desert to death the men whom you conducted out of Frankfort.”
“Why can I not?”
“I should have said a moment ago that you will not, but now I say you cannot. Kurzbold has just shown what an irreclaimable beast he is, and on that account, because birth, or training, or something has made you one of different caliber, you cannot thus desert him to the reprisal of that red fiend up the hill.”
“If I save him now, ‘twill be but to hang him an hour later. I am no hangman, while the Margrave is. I prefer that he should attend to my executions.”
Again Ebearhard laughed.
“‘Tis no use, Roland, pretending abandonment, for you will not abandon. I thoroughly favor choking the life out of Kurzbold, and one or two of the others, and will myself volunteer for the office of headsman, carrying, as I do, the ax, but let everything be done decently and in order, that a dignified execution may follow on a fair trial.”
“Commander,” shouted the captain from the deck of the barge, “make haste, I beg of you. The rope connecting with the Castle has been burnt, and the chain is dragging free. The current is swift, and this barge heavy. We shall be away within the minute.”