'Not openly, but there is only one that he can be.'
Christina smiled, thankful that the work of pardon and reconciliation had been thus softened by the personal qualities of the enemy, whose conduct in the chapel had deeply moved her.
'Then all will be well, blessedly well,' she said.
'So I trust,' said Ebbo, 'but the bell broke our converse, and he laid me down as tenderly as--O mother, if a father's kindness be like his, I have truly somewhat to regain.'
'Knew he aught of the fell bargain?' whispered Christina.
'Not he, of course, save that it was a year of Turkish inroads. He will speak more perchance to-morrow. Mother, not a word to any one, nor let us betray our recognition unless it be his pleasure to make himself known.'
'Certainly not,' said Christina, remembering the danger that the household might revenge Friedel's death if they knew the foe to be in their power. Knowing as she did that Ebbo's admiration was apt to be enthusiastic, and might now be rendered the more fervent by fever and solitude, she was still at a loss to understand his dazzled, fascinated state.
When Heinz entered, bringing the castle key, which was always laid under the Baron's pillow, Ebbo made a movement with his hand that surprised them both, as if to send it elsewhere--then muttered, 'No, no, not till he reveals himself,' and asked, 'Where sleeps the guest?'
'In the grandmother's room, which we fitted for a guest-chamber, little thinking who our first would be,' said his mother.
'Never fear, lady; we will have a care to him,' said Heinz, somewhat grimly.
'Yes, have a care,' said Ebbo, wearily; 'and take care all due honour is shown to him! Good night, Heinz.'
'Gracious lady,' said Heinz, when by a sign he had intimated to her his desire of speaking with her unobserved by the Baron, 'never fear; I know who the fellow is as well as you do. I shall be at the foot of the stairs, and woe to whoever tries to step up them past me.'
'There is no reason to apprehend treason, Heinz, yet to be on our guard can do no harm.'
'Nay, lady, I could look to the gear for the oubliette if you would speak the word.'
'For heaven's sake, no, Heinz. This man has come hither trusting to our honour, and you could not do your lord a greater wrong, nor one that he could less pardon, than by any attempt on our guest.'
'Would that he had never eaten our bread!' muttered Heinz. 'Vipers be they all, and who knows what may come next?'
'Watch, watch, Heinz; that is all,' implored Christina, 'and, above all, not a word to any one else.'
And Christina dismissed the man-at-arms gruff and sullen, and herself retired ill at ease between fears of, and for, the unwelcome guest whose strange powers of fascination had rendered her, in his absence, doubly distrustful.
CHAPTER XXI: RITTER THEURDANK
The snow fell all night without ceasing, and was still falling on the morrow, when the guest explained his desire of paying a short visit to the young Baron, and then taking his departure. Christina would gladly have been quit of him, but she felt bound to remonstrate, for their mountain was absolutely impassable during a fall of snow, above all when accompanied by wind, since the drifts concealed fearful abysses, and the shifting masses insured destruction to the unwary wayfarer; nay, natives themselves had perished between the hamlet and the castle.
'Not the hardiest cragsman, not my son himself,' she said, 'could venture on such a morning to guide you to--'
'Whither, gracious dame?' asked Theurdank, half smiling.
'Nay, sir, I would not utter what you would not make known.'
'You know me then?'
'Surely, sir, for our noble foe, whose generous trust in our honour must win my son's heart.'
'So!' he said, with a peculiar smile, 'Theurdank--Dankwart--I see! May I ask if your son likewise smelt out the Schlangenwald?'
'Verily, Sir Count, my Ebbo is not easily deceived. He said our guest could be but one man in all the empire.'
Theurdank smiled again, saying, 'Then, lady, you shudder not at a man whose kin and yours have shed so much of one another's blood?'
'Nay, ghostly knight, I regard you as no more stained therewith than are my sons by the deeds of their grandfather.'
'If there were more like you, lady,' returned Theurdank, 'deadly feuds would soon be starved out. May I to your son? I have more to say to him, and I would fain hear his views of the storm.'
Christina could not be quite at ease with Theurdank in her son's room, but she had no choice, and she knew that Heinz was watching on the turret stair, out of hearing indeed, but as ready to spring as a cat who sees her young ones in the hand of a child that she only half trusts.
Ebbo lay eagerly watching for his visitor, who greeted him with the same almost paternal kindness he had evinced the night before, but consulted him upon the way from the castle. Ebbo confirmed his mother's opinion that the path was impracticable so long as the snow fell, and the wind tossed it in wild drifts.
'We have been caught in snow,' he said, 'and hard work have we had to get home! Once indeed, after a bear hunt, we fully thought the castle stood before us, and lo! it was all a cruel snow mist in that mocking shape. I was even about to climb our last Eagle's Step, as I thought, when behold, it proved to be the very brink of the abyss.'
'Ah! these ravines are well-nigh as bad as those of the Inn. I've known what it was to be caught on the ledge of a precipice by a sharp wind, changing its course, mark'st thou, so swiftly that it verily tore my hold from the rock, and had well-nigh swept me into a chasm of mighty depth. There was nothing for it but to make the best spring I might towards the crag on the other side, and grip for my life at my alpenstock, which by Our Lady's grace was firmly planted, and I held on till I got breath again, and felt for my footing on the ice-glazed rock.'
'Ah!' said Eberhard with a long breath, after having listened with a hunter's keen interest to this hair's-breadth escape, 'it sounds like a gust of my mountain air thus let in on me.'
'Truly it is dismal work for a lusty hunter to lie here,' said Theurdank, 'but soon shalt thou take thy crags again in full vigour, I hope. How call'st thou the deep gray lonely pool under a steep frowning crag sharpened well-nigh to a spear point, that I passed yester afternoon?'
'The Ptarmigan's Mere, the Red Eyrie,' murmured Ebbo, scarcely able to utter the words as he thought of Friedel's delight in the pool, his exploit at the eyrie, and the gay bargain made in the streets of Ulm, that he should show the scaler of the Dom steeple the way to the eagle's nest.
'I remember,' said his guest gravely, coming to his side. 'Ah, boy! thy brother's flight has been higher yet. Weep freely; fear me not. Do I not know what it is, when those who were over-good for earth have found their eagle's wings, and left us here?'
Ebbo gazed up through his tears into the noble, mournful face that was bent kindly over him. 'I will not seek to comfort thee by counselling thee to forget,' said Theurdank. 'I was scarce thine elder when my life was thus rent asunder, and to hoar hairs, nay, to the grave itself, will she be my glory and my sorrow. Never owned I brother, but I trow ye two were one in no common sort.'
'Such brothers as we saw at Ulm were little like us,' returned Ebbo, from the bottom of his heart. 'We were knit together so that all will begin with me as if it were the left hand remaining alone to do it! I am glad that my old life may not even in shadow be renewed till after I have gone in quest of my father.'
'Be not over hasty in that quest,' said the guest, 'or the infidels may chance to gain two Freiherren instead of one. Hast any designs?'
Ebbo explained that he thought of making his way to Genoa to consult the merchant Gian Battista dei Battiste, whose description of the captive German noble had so strongly impressed Friedel. Ebbo knew the difference between Turks and Moors, but Friedel's impulse guided him, and he further thought that at Genoa he should learn the way to deal with either variety of infidel. Theurdank thought this a prudent course, since the Genoese had dealings both at Tripoli and Constantinople; and, moreover, the transfer was not impossible, since the two different hordes of Moslems trafficked among themselves when either had made an unusually successful razzia.
