“A pleasant draught that,” he laughed sturdily, “set against the dose our Count would have ready for me.”
“Nonsense, man,” Udo said impatiently; “you will have our protection, and as for the Count——”
The fellow interrupted him with a still more derisive laugh. “The Count? You think, with your score of men, to come to a reckoning with him? Why, Captain, you might as soon try to catch in your hand a bird flying past you. Ten times your force would never get inside that castle, were the Count minded to keep you out: and if you did get in you would never get out again.”
“We shall see,” Udo returned, scornfully confident.
“You do not know my master,” said the man.
“I know him,” Udo retorted, “for a pestilent, defiant law-breaker. A villain who, for this piece of work, will at last meet the hangman who has long been expecting him.”
The prisoner’s only reply was an incredulous laugh.
“Do you mean to show us how to gain entrance to the castle?” Udo demanded impatiently.
“Not I,” the fellow answered. “And you may thank me for refusing to do you that ill service.”
Udo raised his hand, as though about to order him to be strung up; then, with a change of intention, he had him bound and attached to one of his troopers.