CHAPTER VIII
GRAF LUDWIG
THE trap had snapped. Ulrich of Eisenach was in it. He had doubled the vow to Saint Moritz, but with no avail. In the last twilight the frighted watchers at the Wartburg peered from their turrets, and saw the dim masses of horse and footmen spreading themselves around the mountain,—hundreds, thousands. Graf Ludwig had been nearer, and in greater force than any lanzknecht dreamed. The Wartburg was ringed in by foes.
But this was not the worst. Ulrich’s men were still beating up the forest, and the Graf had silently cut off their retreat. As they wandered home in sullen handfuls, cursing the bootless hunt, his sentries had nipped them, nearly all, taking prisoners after few struggles and fewer blows. Only two, slyer than the rest, had crept through the besiegers, and into the postern, with a tale which made Priest Clement’s teeth chatter,—how Ludwig was at the gates with nigh three thousand men.
Ulrich had felt hard knocks from the Devil ere now, but this was the hardest. The Wartburg was a very Emperor of castles,—provisioned and garrisoned by eight hundred, it could hold Kaiser Rudolf at bay. But inside the walls the Baron could barely count on twenty men fit to strike a blow, and the sluttish women were good for nought save screaming. Ulrich dropped the portcullis, placed a catapult to command the gate, and set boxes of arrows along the ramparts to insure ready ammunition; but how were a score to defend the long circuit of the battlement? The moat was almost dry. At dawn the Baron could kill a few attackers, but by the third hour after he knew well enough he would be voyaging toward heaven or elsewhere.
Desperate enough was every one in the Wartburg. As the night blackened, their mood blackened also. The sky was thickly clouded, starless, and moonless. A murky hot wind fanned from the south, dead and stifling,—“fit reminder,” so Michael forced the jest, “of the breeze likely to blow in their next habitation.” Priest Clement, who stood beside him on the gate tower, trembled all over at the impious levity.
“Do you not fear God? Are you so anxious for torment?”
“Humph!” grumbled the Breaker; “as much as you, holy Father. But I would have small respect for God if He were to forgive you or me now. We have made our bargain with Satan as do all fools, ‘for a short life and a merry one,’ and none should whine like a puppy if the landlord demands the ‘drink-penny’ at last.”
“You mean our souls?” moaned the priest.