"You may mend that record shortly, to all appearance, if you have luck!" said Von Orseln grimly. "And this gentleman here," he added, looking at Jorian, "is he also in bed, sick?"
"My sword is at your service," said the round one, "though I should prefer a musketoon, if it is all the same to you. It will be something to do till these firebrands come within arm's length of us."
"I have here two which are very much at your service, if you know how to use them!" said Werner.
The men-at-arms laughed.
"We know their tricks better than those of our sweethearts!" they said, "and those we know well!"
"Here they be, then," said Von Orseln. "I sent a couple of men spurring to warn my Lady Joan, and I bade them leave their muskets and bandoliers till they came back, that they might ride the lighter to and from Kernsberg."
Boris and Jorian took the spare pieces with a glow of gratitude, which was, however, very considerably modified when they discovered the state in which their former owners had kept them.
"Dirty Wendish pigs," they said (which was their favourite malediction, though they themselves were Wend of the Wends). "Were they but an hour in our camp they should ride the wooden horse with these very muskets tied to their soles to keep them firmly down. Faugh!"
And Jorian withdrew his finger from the muzzle, black as soot with the grease of uncleansed powder.
Looking up, they saw that the priest with the little army of Kernsberg was praying fervently (after the Hussite manner, without book) for the safety of the State and person of their lady Duchess, and that the men were listening bareheaded beneath the green slope of the water-dyke.