"What's that to you?" growled that dignitary, who felt himself insulted by such familiarity. "How do you dare to force yourself unbidden into the council chamber?"
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," stammered the bridegroom, surprised. "I come to give you a capital piece of advice—the idea just occurred to me."
Every face grew long from assumed dignity.
"What! you will give advice? You—to us?"
But as the young man entreated them to hear him, the Bürgermeister permitted him to speak, provided he would be short.
The bridegroom unfolded his plan, which, though unwillingly, was approved of.
Meanwhile, Arno concluded that his robbery of the bride was undiscovered, and was strengthened in this idea, as some days after he saw a group of maidens, decked in bridal array, issue forth from the town to the same meadow.
Suddenly he resolved to carry off one of them, and when they had danced themselves weary and had thrown themselves down on the grass to rest, he rushed out of the wood, and, like a vulture, swooped down upon his prey.
But, to his astonishment, the maiden, instead of resisting, held him fast, and the others drew forth daggers and attacked and killed his retainers. Resistance was useless; he could not free himself from the powerful arms of the disguised soldier. They dragged him to Aschersleben, and shut him up in a cage, where he starved to death.
The bridegroom put on Arno's armour, and the troop, concealed in loaded wagons, were conducted to the Arnstein by the disguised bridegroom. The warder saw the train approaching, and at once opened the gates to admit it.