ding, that she looked at the
fallen enemy much as a modern lady may look at a slain tiger.

Eleanor had meantime met Sigismund with, 'Ah! well I knew that you would
come to our aid. So true a knight must achieve the adventure!'

'Safe, safe, I am blessed and thankful,' said the Duke, falling on one
knee to kiss her hand. 'How have these robbers treated my Lady?'

'Well, as well as they know how. That good woman has been very kind
to us,' said Eleanor, as she saw Barbe peeping from the stair. 'Come
hither, Barbe and Trudchen, to the Lord Duke's mercy.'

They were entering the hall, and, at the same moment, the gates were
thrown open, and the men waiting with Gebhardt and Robert Douglas began
to pour in. It was well for Barbe and her daughter that they could take
shelter behind the ladies, for the men were ravenous for some prize, or
something to wreak their excitement upon, besides the bare walls of the
castle, and its rude stores of meal and beer. The old Baron was hauled
down from his bed by half-a-dozen men, and placed before the Duke with
bound hands.

'Hola, Siege!' said he in German, all unabashed. 'You have got me at
last--by a trick! I always bade Rudiger look to that quarry; but young
men think they know best.'

'The old traitor!' said George in French. 'Hang him from his tower for a
warning to his like, as we should do in Scotland.'

'What cause have you to show why we should not do as saith the knight?'
said Sigismund.

'I care little how it goes with my old carcase now,' returned
Balchenburg, in the spirit of the Amalekite of old. 'I only mourn that
I shall not be there to see the strife you will breed with the
lute-twanger or his fellows at Nanci.'

Gebhardt here gave his opinion that it would be wise to reserve the old
man for King Rene's justice, so as to obviate all peril of dissension.
The small garrison, to be left in the castle under the most prudent
knight whom Gebhardt could select, were instructed only to profess
to hold it till the Lords of Alsace and Lorraine should jointly have
determined what was to be done with it.

It was not expedient to tarry there long. A hurried meal was made, and
then the victors set out on the descent. George had found his good steed
in the stables, together with the ladies' palfreys, and there had been
great joy in the mutual recognition; but Jean's horse was found to show
traces of its fall, and her arm was not yet entirely recovered, so that
she was seated