"I will take you to my father," said Sigismund, "who will be right glad to see you; only that he is ill at ease just now for the death of brother Rudiger, who fell with the banner in his hand, by the only cannon that was fired this morning. The rest could not bark: Campo-basso had muzzled Colvin's mastiffs, or we should many more of us have been served like poor Rudiger. But Colvin himself is killed."
"Campo-basso, then, was in your correspondence?" said Arthur.
"Not in ours—we scorn such companions—but some dealing there was between the Italian and Duke Ferrand; and having disabled the cannon, and filled the German gunners soundly drunk, he came off to our camp with fifteen hundred horse, and offered to act with us. 'But no, no!' said my father,—'traitors come not into our Swiss host;' and so, though we walked in at the door which he left open, we would not have his company. So he marched with Duke Ferrand to attack the other extremity of the camp, where he found them entrance by announcing them as the return of a reconnoitring party."
"Nay, then," said Arthur, "a more accomplished traitor never drew breath, nor one who drew his net with such success."
"You say well," answered the young Swiss.
"The Duke will never, they say, be able to collect another army?"
"Never, young man," said the Earl of Oxford, "for he lies dead before you."[14]
Sigismund started; for he had an inherent respect, and somewhat of fear, for the lofty name of Charles the Bold, and could hardly believe that the mangled corpse which now lay before him was once the personage he had been taught to dread. But his surprise was mingled with sorrow when he saw the body of his uncle, Count Albert of Geierstein.
"Oh, my uncle!" he said—"my dear uncle Albert! has all your greatness and your wisdom brought you to a death, at the side of a ditch, like any crazed beggar?—Come, this sad news must be presently told to my father, who will be concerned to hear of his brother's death, which will add gall to bitterness, coming on the back of poor Rudiger's. It is some comfort, however, that father and uncle never could abide each other."
With some difficulty they once more assisted the Earl of Oxford to horseback, and were proceeding to set forward, when the English lord said,—"You will place a guard here, to save these bodies from further dishonour, that they may be interred with due solemnity."