"I confess, my friend, that if anybody, even I, Larsson himself, should call you a poltroon, I would call that fellow a liar. It is true that you once as good as solo, alone, alienus, all by yourself, took this fortress; but you had then at least a sword in your hand, and a few thousands of brave boys in the rear. Hush! I heard a step on the stairs ... no, it was nothing. Let us push on cautiously. Here it will serve us to tread gingerly, like maidens; the heavy peasant's boots sound as if we were a squadron of cavalry."
The fugitives had ascended about thirty or forty steps, and yet there seemed more, until a faint ray of light glimmered at the top in the passage. They then came to a door; it stood ajar. They stopped, and held their breath; not a sound could be heard. The brave captain now ventured to put in his head, then his foot, and finally his whole stout person.
"We are on the right track," he whispered; "boots off, the whole company must march in their stockinged feet—posito that the company has stockings. March!"
The bishop's bed-chamber, into which the three now entered on tip-toe, was a large and magnificent room. A flickering lamp faintly illumined the precious gobelin tapestry, the gilded images of the saints, and the ebony bedstead, inlaid with pearls, where the wealthy prelate used to fall asleep, with his goblet of Rhenish wine beside him. No living creature was visible, but from one of the windows which overlooked the courtyard they could see the castle chapel opposite, brilliantly lighted and filled with people. Even the courtyard was occupied by a crowd, visible owing to the reflection from the windows, and many of whom carried lighted candles.
"I will let them salt and pickle me like a cucumber if I understand what all these people are doing here in the dead of night," muttered the enraged captain. "You will find that they have assembled here to see three honest Finnish soldiers roasted by a slow fire like Aland herrings."
"We must look for weapons, and die like men," said Bertel, as he glanced through the room.
"Hurrah!" he exclaimed, "here are three swords, just what we require."
"And three daggers," added Larsson, who, in a large niche behind the image of a saint, found a little arsenal of all kinds of weapons. "The worthy fathers have a certain weakness for daggers, as the East Bothnians for 'punkkons,' or peasants' knives."
"I think," joined in the taciturn Pekka, as he caught sight of a good-sized flask in a corner, "that to-night being Xmas eve..."
"Brave boy!" interrupted the captain, inspired also by this sight, "you have a wonderfully keen scent where good liquor is concerned. Pious Jesuit, you have, anyhow, accomplished some good in the world! Xmas eve, did you say? Stupid, why didn't you tell us at once? It is clear as the day, that half of Würzburg is streaming to the chapel to hear Father Hieronymus say mass. 'Pon my honour, I fear that he will keep them waiting for some time, the good pater. Here goes, my friend, I will drink to you; an officer ought to always set his troops a good example. Your health, my boys ... damnation ... the miserable monk has basely cheated us. I have swallowed poison. I am a dead man!" And the honest captain turned pale as a corpse.