Thus in the hall of the men-at-arms in the Castle of Courtland spoke the two captains of Plassenburg. All this time they were busy with their attiring, Boris in especial making great play with a tortoiseshell comb among his tangled locks. Somewhat more spruce was the arraying of our twin comrades-in-arms than we have seen it. Perhaps it was the thought of the dangerous escort duty upon which they had promised to venture forth that night; perhaps——
"May we come in?" cried an arch voice from the doorway. "Ah, we have caught you! There—we knew it! So said I to my sister not an hour agone. Women may be vain as peacocks, but for prinking, dandifying vanity, commend me to a pair of foreign war-captains. My lords, have you blacked your eyelashes yet, touched up your eyebrows, scented and waxed those beautiful moustaches? Sister, can you look and live?"
And to the two soldiers, standing stiff as at attention, with their combs in their hands, enter the sisters Anna and Martha Pappenheim, more full of mischief than ever, and entirely unsubdued by the presence of the invader at their gates.
"Russ or Turk, Courtlander or Franconian, Jew, proselyte, or dweller in Mesopotamia, all is one to us. So be they are men, we will engage to tie them about our little fingers!"
"Why," cried Martha, "whence this grand toilet? We knew not that you had friends in the city. And yet they tell me you have been in Courtland before, Sir Boris?"
"Marthe," cried Anna Pappenheim, with vast pretence of indignation, "what has gotten into you, girl? Can you have forgotten that martial carriage, those limbs incomparably knit, that readiness of retort and delicate sparkle of Wendish wit, which set all the table in a roar, and yet never once brought the blush to maiden's cheek? For shame, Marthe!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed Jorian suddenly, short and sharp, as if a string had been pulled somewhere.
"Ho! ho!" thus more sonorously Boris.
Anna Pappenheim caught her skirts in her hand and spun round on her heel on pretence of looking behind her.