THE CHARM OF THE OLD WORLD ROMANCES – Premium 10 Book Collection. Robert BarrЧитать онлайн книгу.
making no outcry.
"Unbind this man. Take the gag from his mouth and the rope from his neck. Now, fellow, is it true that you were outside the walls? What were you doing there?"
Conrad stood speechless, apparently in a dazed condition, looking about him like one in a dream, but when the Emperor spoke kindly to him, he moistened his dry lips, and drew the back of his hand across his chin.
"What did you say?" he asked, turning his eyes upon his master.
"My Lord, the Count, wishes to know if it is true that you were outside the walls, and asks why you were there."
"I went to meet Hilda, who had come up from Alken."
"Then you disobeyed orders, and have deserved the fright you got," broke in the Count. "How came you with a Treves blade?"
"I wrested it from one of the Archbishop's men when the captain fell on me. I tried to defend myself and called for the guard, but when it came it arrested and gagged me."
"What is the truth of this selling of the castle?"
"The captain was to unbar the gates an hour after guard-changing to-morrow night, and the Archbishop's troops were to enter silently. He told them to be certain to secure your Lordship first, otherwise you might rally the men and defeat the soldiers, even though they got inside."
The Black Count almost smiled as he heard this compliment paid him, and he cast a malignant glance at the silent captain.
"Yes," he cried, "the opening of the gates seems more likely than the climbing of the wall. Now search Steinmetz as you searched his prisoner, and let us see what you discover. I think I heard the chime of coin in his neighbourhood."
Without resistance the searchers brought forth the three bags of gold, one of which the Count tore open, pouring the yellow pieces into his palm as he had done with Conrad's silver. His eyes lit up again with the insane frenzy which now and then shone in them, as he gazed down at the coins, on each of which was the head of his old enemy, Arnold von Isenberg. Scattering the money from his hand as if it had suddenly become red hot, he seized the three bags one after another and dashed them in fury on the stones, where they burst, sending the gold like a shower of sparks from a smith's anvil all over the courtyard. Men's eyes glittered at the sight, but such was their terror of the Black Count that no one moved a muscle as this wealth rolled at their feet.
"Steinmetz," shouted the Count, "draw your sword and cast it on the stones. No man can take it, for none amongst us is so low and vile but he would be contaminated by the touch of it."
Captain Steinmetz drew his sword and flung it ringing at his master's feet. The Count stamped on it near the hilt and shattered the blade like an icicle. Turning to the followers he cried:
"You see this man has sold us. What should be the fate of such a traitor?"
With one voice the men shouted:
"He should be hanged with the rope he designed for the other."
The Count pondered a moment with lowering brows, then said, his face as malignant as that of a demon:
"Not so. My good brother of Treves has bought him, and I am too honest a trader to cheat the holy Archbishop, God bless him, of his purchase. We shall bind our worthy captain and straightway deliver him, as goods duly bargained for, to his owner, von Isenberg. Tear off his cloak and bind him, leaving his legs free that he may walk."
Surprise and delight gleamed in the captain's eyes. Merely to be delivered to the Archbishop of Treves, was getting well out of a predicament he had come to look upon as fatal. In spite of their fear of the master of Thuron, there were murmurs at this unexampled clemency, and Rodolph gave voice to the general feeling.
"I think, my Lord, that his treachery, not to speak of his usage of an innocent man, is inadequately punished by simply handing him over to the Archbishop, who assuredly will not molest him further."
But the Count made no answer. When the elbows of the criminal were securely bound, Heinrich said;
"Lieutenant, select a dozen of your best catapult men as guard to the prisoner. Bring with you the rope and take this Archbishop's man under close watch to the top of the north tower. Let a torchbearer precede us. Follow us, my Lord Rodolph, and you, fellow, who came so near to hanging."
When they reached the top of the north tower, Captain Steinmetz, with sudden premonition of his fate, now for the first time cried aloud for mercy, but the Count paid no heed to him. From this tower could best be descried the awful depth of the Thaurand's chasm, made the more terrible by the partial illumination of the moon adding a seeming vastness to the gulf, which the clearer light of day dispelled. The profound and narrow valley appeared gloomy and unfathomable, and on the opposite height above it gleamed the great white tent of the Archbishops.
"Bend back the catapult," commanded the Count.
The stalwart men threw themselves on the levers, and slowly worked back the tremendous arms of the engine, which bent grudgingly, groaning from long disuse. At last the claw-like clutches which held the incurvated beams in place until released by a jerk of the rope, snapped into position, and the catapult men, rising and straightening their backs from the levers, drew hand across perspiring brow.
"Take up the rope," said the Count to Conrad, who with visible reluctance lifted the release rope, and stood holding it.
"Now force this traitor's head between his knees. Double up his legs, and tie him into a ball. The Archbishop must not complain that we deliver goods slovenly."
Steinmetz screamed aloud, and cried that such punishment was inhuman; even the guard hesitated, but an oath from the Black Count and a fierce glare flung about him, put springs into their bodies, and they fell on their late captain, smothering his cries, jamming down his head as they had been directed to do, finally tying him into a bundle that looked like nothing human. The wails of the doomed man in this constrained position would have cried mercy to any less savage than the Count.
"Place him on the catapult."
Two men picked him up and flung him into the jaws of the waiting monster with as little ceremony as if he were a sack of corn.
"Pull the rope, fellow."
Conrad stood motionless, gazing with horror at the furious Count.
"Stop, stop," cried Rodolph. "I protest against this cruelty. It is never your intention to launch him into eternity in such ghastly fashion. This is fiendish torture, not justice."
The Count, with the snarl of a wild beast, sprang forward, seized the rope from Conrad's nerveless fingers, jerked the mechanism loose before any could move to prevent him, and the great beams shot out like the arms of a man swimming. The human bundle was hurled forth into space, giving vent to a long continued shriek, that struck terror into every heart but that of the man who stood with the rope in his hand, his exultant face turned triumphantly upward in the moonlight. The shriek, continually lessening, rose and fell as the victim's head revolved round and round in its course through the air.
The human projectile disappeared long before it reached the earth, and every one stood motionless awaiting the crash which they thought would come to them in the still night air across the valley, but the Count sprang forward, and standing at the parapet, shook his clenched fist toward the sky, filling the valley with a madman's laughter which came echoing back to them from the opposite cliffs, as if there were in the hills a cave full of malignant maniacs.
"There, Arnold von Isenberg," he roared, "the gold is in my courtyard; the merchandise is in your camp."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE BLACK COUNT'S DEFIANCE.
During the two years that the siege lasted, the Archbishops did not remain in their camp on the heights as pertinaciously as their soldiers had to cling to the line around the castle. Konrad von Hochstaden