"Gott, would that I had my arbalist! I could put gimlet holes in these knaves!" whispered Jorian over Boris's shoulder.
"Hush!" muttered Boris; "it is lucky for Martha Pappenheim that you left it at home!"
"Captains Boris and Jorian," Theresa was speaking with quietness, raising her voice just enough to make herself heard over the roar of the wind overhead, for the nook in which they presently found themselves was sheltered, "I bid you adieu—it may be farewell. You have done nobly and like two valiant captains who were fit to war with Henry the Lion. I thank you. You will bear me faithful witness in the things of which I have spoken to you. Take this ring from me, not in recompense, but in memory. It is a bauble worth any lady's acceptance. And you this dagger." She took two from within her mantle, and gave one to Jorian. "It is good steel and will not fail you. The fellow of it I will keep!"
She motioned them backward with her hand.
"Abide there among the bushes till you see a man come out to meet me. Then depart, and till you have good reason keep the last secret of Theresa, wife of Henry the Lion, Duke of Kernsberg and Hohenstein!"
Boris and Jorian bowed themselves as low as the straitness of their armour would permit.
"We thank you, madam," they said; "as you have commanded, so will we do!"
And as they had been bidden they withdrew into a clump of willow and alder whose leaves clashed together and snapped like whips in the wind.
"Yonder woman is braver than you or I, Jorian," said Boris, as crouching they watched her climb the ridge. "Which of us would do as much for any on the earth?"
"After all, it is for her son. If you had children, who can say——?"