"Where is the Schloss situated?"

"Below Coblentz, on the eastern side of the river."

"Then why not let me take you there instead of to the convent?"

"Willingly, if you had brought your barge-load of armed men, but in Sayn
Castle I am helpless, commanding a peaceful retinue of servants who,
although devoted to me, are useless when it comes to defense."

"I cannot account for it," said Roland in meditative tone, "but the
thought of that convent becomes more and more distasteful. You will be
free of your guardian, no doubt, but you merely exchange one whom you
know for another whom you don't, and that other a member of your own
sex."

"Do you disparage my sex, then?"

"No; but I cannot imagine any man being discourteous to you. Surely
every gentleman with a sword by his side should spring at once to your
defense."

The girl laughed.

"Ah, Captain Roland, you are very young, and, I fear, inexperienced,
despite your filibustering. However, this lovely, still, summer night,
with its warm, velvety darkness, was made for pleasant thoughts. Enough
about myself. Let me hear something of you. Did you come up the river or
down, with your barge?"

"We came down."

"How long since you adopted a career of crime? You do not seem to be a
hardened villain."

"Believe me," protested Roland earnestly, "I am not, and I do not admit
that my career is one of crime."

"Indeed," said the girl, laughing again, "I am not so gullible as you
think. I could almost fancy that you were the incendiary of Furstenberg
Castle."

"What!" exclaimed Roland in consternation. "How came you to learn of its
destruction?"

"There!" cried the girl gleefully, "you have all but confessed. You are
as startled as if I had said: 'I arrest you in the name of the
Emperor!'"

"Who told you that Furstenberg Castle was burned?" demanded the young
man sternly.

"Yesterday morning there came swiftly down the river, with no less than
twelve oarsmen, a long, thin boat, traveling like the wind. It did not
pause at Pfalz, but the man standing in the stern hailed the Castle, and
shouted to the Pfalzgraf that Furstenberg had been burned by the outlaws
of the Hunsruck. He was on his way to Bonn to inform the Archbishop of
Cologne, and he carried also Imperial news for his Lordship: tidings
that the Emperor is dead."

"Dead!" breathed Roland in horror, scarcely above his breath. "The
Emperor dead! I wonder if that can be true."

"Little matter whether it