ving by the saddle"--as, indeed, most of the Ritterdom and gentry
of the Mark had done for generations.

Then behind them came Duke Casimir himself. The Eastland blood he had
acquired from his Polish mother showed as he rode gloomily apart,
thoughtful, solitary, behind the squared shoulders of his knights. After
him another squadron of riders in ghastly armor of black-and-white, with
torches in their hand and grinning skulls upon their shields, closed in
the array. The great gate of the Wolfsberg was open now, and, leaving
behind him the hushed and darkened town, the master rode into his castle.
The Wolf was in his lair. But in the streets many a burgher's wife
trembled on her bed, while her goodman peered cautiously over the leads
by the side of a gargoyle, and fancied that already he heard the clamor
of the partisans thundering at his door with the Duke's invitation to
meet him in the Hall of Judgment.

CHAPTER II

THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME

But there was to be no Session in the Hall of Judgment that night. The
great court-yard, roofed with the vault of stars and lit by the moon, was
to see all done that remained to be done. The torches were planted in the
iron hold-fasts round about. The plunder of the captured towns and
castles was piled for distribution on the morrow, and no man dared keep
back so much as a Brandenburg broad-piece or a handful of Bohemian
gulden. For the fear of the Duke and the Duke's dog-kennels was upon
every stout fighting-kerl. They minded the fate of Hans Pulitz, who had
kept back a belt of gold, and had gotten himself flung by the heels with
no more than the stolen belt upon him, into the kennels where the Duke's
blood-hounds howled and clambered with their fore-feet on the
black-spattered barriers. And they say that the belt of gold was all that
was ever seen again of the poor rascal. Hans Pulitz--who had hoped for so
many riotous evenings among the Fat Pigs of Thorn and so many draughts of
the slippery wine of the Rheingan careering down the poor thirsty throat
of him. But, alas for Hans Pulitz! the end of all imagining was no more
than five minutes of snapping, snarling, horrible Pandemonium in the
kennels of the Wolfsberg, and the scored gold chain on the ground was all
that remained to tell his tale. Verily, there were few Achans in Duke
Casimir's camp.

And it is small wonder after this, that scant and sparse were the jests
played on the grim master of the Wolfsberg,