"Will you tell me how I came here, and to whom I am indebted for my life?" he said, as Joan stood up beside him, her shapely head dim and retired in the misty dusk above the lamp, only her chin and the shapely curves of her throat being illumined by the warm lamplight.
"You were picked up for dead on the beach in the midst of the storm," she answered, "and were brought hither by two captains in the service of the Prince of Plassenburg!"
"And where is this place, and when can I leave it to proceed upon my journey?"
The girl's head was turned away from him a trifle more haughtily than before, and she answered coldly, "You are in a certain fortified grange somewhere on the Baltic shore. As to when you can proceed on your journey, that depends neither on you nor on me. I am a prisoner here. And so I fear must you also consider yourself!"
"A prisoner! Then has my brother——?" cried the Prince-Bishop, starting up on his elbow and instantly dropping back again upon the pillow with a groan of mingled pain and weakness. Joan looked at him a moment and then, compressing her lips with quick resolution, went to the bedside and with one hand under his head rearranged the pillow and laid him back in an easier posture.
"You must lie still," she said in a commanding tone, and yet softly; "you are too weak to move. Also you must obey me. I have some skill in leechcraft."
"I am content to be your prisoner," said the Prince-Bishop smiling—"that is, till I am well enough to proceed on my journey to Rome, whither the Holy Father Pope Sixtus hath summoned me by a special messenger."
"I fear me much," answered Joan, "that, spite of the Holy Father, we may be fellow-prisoners of long standing. Those of my own folk who hold me here against my will are hardly likely to let the brother of Prince Louis of Courtland escape with news of my hiding-place and present hermitage!"
The young man seemed as if he would again have started up, but with a gesture smilingly imperious Joan forbade him.
"To-morrow," she said, "perhaps if you are patient I will tell you more. Here comes our hostess. It is time that I should leave you."