"Joan of the Sword Hand! Hoch! Hent yourselves up, Wends! Up, Plassenburg! Joan of the Sword Hand! Our Lady Joan! Hoch! And three times hoch!"
The hurrahs ran round the oak-panelled hall. Jorian and Boris looked at each other with surprise, but they were stout fellows, and took matters, even when most serious, pretty much as they came.
"I thank you, gentlemen, on behalf of my lady, in whose name I command here," said Werner, bowing ceremoniously to all around, while the others settled themselves to listen. "Now, worthy soldiers of Plassenburg," he went on, "be it known to you that if (to suppose a case which will not happen) I were to tell our Lady Joan what you have confessed to us here and boasted of—that you lied and double lied to her—I lay my life and the lives of these good fellows that the pair of you would be aswing from the corner gallery of the Lion's Tower in something under five minutes."
"Aye, and a good deed it were, too!" chorussed the round table of the guard hall. "Heaven send it, the jackanapes! To rail at our Duchess!"
Jorian rose to his feet. "Up, Boris!" he cried; "no Bor-Russian, no kern of Hohenstein that ever lived, shall overcrow a captain of the armies of Plassenburg and a soldier of the Princess Helene—Heaven bless her! Take your ring in your hand, Boris, for we will go up straightway, you and I. And we will tell the Lady Duchess Joan that, having no sweetheart of legal standing, and no desire for any, we choused her into the belief that we would bestow her rings upon our betrothed in the rose-gardens of Plassenburg. Then will we see if indeed we shall be aswing in five minutes. Ready, Boris?"
"Aye, thrice ready, Jorian!"
"About, then! Quick march!"
A great noise of clapping rose all round the hall as the two stout soldiers set themselves to march up the staircase by which they had just descended.
"Stand to the doors!" cried Werner, the chief captain; "do not let them pass. Up and drink a deep cup to them, rather! To Captains Jorian and Boris of Plassenburg, brave fellows both! Charge your tankards. The mead of Wendishland shall not run dry. Fill them to the brim. A caraway seed in each for health's sake. There! Now to the honour and long lives of our guests. Jorian and Boris—hoch!"
"Jorian and Boris—hoch!"