For there in the doorway, her slim figure erect and exceedingly commanding, and her beautiful eyes shining with indignation, stood the Duchess Joan of Hohenstein.
"Joan of the Sword Hand!" said Jorian, enraptured. "Gott, what a wench!"
In stern silence she advanced into the hall, every man standing fixed at attention.
"Good discipline!" said Boris.
"Shut your mouth!" responded Jorian.
"Keep your hand so, Hans Trenck," said their mistress; "give me your sword, Werner! You shall see whether I am called Joan of the Sword Hand for naught. You would torture prisoners, would you, after what I have said? Hold up, I say, Hans Trenck!"
And so, no man saying her nay, the girl took the shining blade and, with a preliminary swish through the air and a balancing shake to feel the elastic return, she looked at the poor knave fixed before her in the centre of the hall with his wrist strained to hold the prisoner's ball aloft at the stretch of his arm. What wonder if it wavered like a branch in an uncertain wind?
"Steady there!" said Joan.
And she drew back her arm for the stroke.
The young Dane, who, since her entrance, had looked at nothing save the radiant beauty of the figure before him, now cried out, "For Heaven's sake, lady, do not soil the skirts of your dress with his villain blood. He but obeyed his orders. Let me be set free, and I will fight him or any man in the castle. And if I am beaten, let them torture me till I am carrion fit only to be thrown into the castle ditch."