'Yes,' the general answered, holding out his silver cup to be filled, and for that reason perhaps speaking very deliberately, 'to join the King of Sweden--at Nuremberg. But you have not yet told me, countess,' he continued, 'why you are afield. This part is not in a very settled state, and I should have thought that the present time was----'
'A bad one for travelling?' my lady answered. 'Yes. But, I regret to say, Heritzburg is not in a very settled state either.' And thereon, without dwelling much on the cause of her troubles, she told him the main facts which had led to her departure.
I saw his lip curl and his eyes flicker with scorn. 'But had you no gunpowder?' he said, turning to the Waldgrave.
'We had, but no cannon,' he answered confidently.
'What of that?' the general retorted icily. 'I would have made a bomb, no matter of what, and fired it out of a leather boot hooped with cask-irons! I would have had half a dozen of their houses burning about their ears before they knew where they were, the insolents!'
The Waldgrave looked ashamed of himself. 'I did not think of that,' he said; and he hastened to hide his confusion in his glass.
'Well, it is not too late,' General Tzerclas rejoined, showing his teeth in a smile. 'If the Countess pleases, we will soon teach her subjects a lesson. I am not pushed for time. I will detach four troops of horse and return with you to-morrow, and settle the matter in a trice.'
But my lady said that she would not have that, and persisted so firmly in her refusal that though he pressed the offer upon her, and I could see was keenly interested in its acceptance, he had to give way. The reasons she put forward were the loss of his time and the injury to his cause; the real one consisted, I knew, in her merciful reluctance to give over the town to his troops, a reluctance for which I honoured her. To appease him, however, for he seemed inclined to take her refusal in bad part, she consented to go out of her way to visit his camp.
At this point my lady sent me on an errand to her women, which caused me to be away some minutes. When I came back I found that a change had taken place. The Waldgrave was speaking, and, from his heated face and the tone of his voice, it was evident that the old wine which had begun by opening his heart had ended by rousing his pugnacity.
'Pooh! I protest in toto!' he said as I came up. 'I deny it altogether. You will tell me next that the Germans are worse soldiers than the Swedes!'