Councillor near to me, under
his breath.

"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Jorian.

The Prince looked at Boris.

"And you?" he said.

"Twelve dozen Rhenish!" said Boris, without moving a muscle.

"God Bacchus!" cried the Prince, "you will empty my cellars between
you, and I shall not have a sober archer for a month. But you shall
have it. Go!"

Jorian and Boris saluted with a wink to each other as they wheeled, which
said, as plain as monk's script or plainer, "Good!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE PRINCE'S COMPACT

In spite of all drawbacks and difficulties (and I had my share of them) I
loved Plassenburg. And especially I loved the Prince. The son, so they
said, of a miller in the valley of the Almer, he had entered the guard of
the last Prince of Plassenburg, much as I had now entered his own
service. Prince Dietrich had taken a fancy to him, and advanced him so
rapidly that, after the disastrous war with Duke Casimir of the Mark and
the death of the last legitimate Prince, Karl, the miller's son, having
set himself to reorganize the army, succeeded so well that it was not
long before he found himself the source of all authority in Plassenburg.

Thereafter he gave to the decimated and heartless land adequate defences
and complete safety against foreign foes, together with security for life
and property, under equal laws, within its own borders. So, in time, no
man saying him nay, Karl Miller's Son became the Prince of Plassenburg,
and his seat was more secure upon his throne than that of any legitimate
prince for a thousand miles all round about.

After the quarrel with Von Reuss, the Prince, for reasons of his own,
favored me with a great deal of his society. He was often graciously
pleased to talk concerning his early difficulties.

"When I was an understrapper," he was wont to say, "the land was
overswarmed and eaten up by officialdom. I could not see the good meat
wasted upon crawlers. 'Get to work,' said I, 'or ye shall neither eat
nor crawl!'

"'We must eat--to beg we are not ashamed, to steal is the right of our
noble Ritterdom,' the crawlers replied.

"'So,' said I, '_bitte_--as to that we shall see!'

"Then I made me a fine gallows, builded like that outside Paris, which I
had seen once when on an embassy for Prince Dietrich. It was like a
castle, with walls twelve feet thick, and on the beams of it room for a
hundred or more to swing, each with his six feet of clearance, all
comfortable, and