taken with much slaughter and grievous loss of
goodly gear. They captivated many noble prisoners also, and, because I
slept in the stables, they took me to help lead the horses. Yet I was not
ill-treated, save that I had to keep pace with the horsemen upon my feet.
But I saw the Prince--"

"Which Prince? Speak plainly," said the High Councillor, gruffly.

"Why, the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg of Plassenburg," said the man.
"He, as your well-born Wisdom remembers, was then the only Prince in
these parts--a good man, and born of the noblest, though not of the
capacity of his present Highness the Prince Karl."

"Proceed somewhat faster. Yon move as slowly as one of your own
forest oxen at the wood-hauling," cried the well-born Councillor in a
testy tone.

"We were long in riding over to Thorn--two days and nights upon the way.
It was a terrible time, and all the while those condemned beasts of the
Wolfmark, Casimir's Black Riders, driving us with their spears like
prick-goads, till our backs were all bleeding, gentle and simple alike.
So at midnight of the third day we came to the city of Thorn, and up
through the streets to the Wolfsberg. There was no gladness in the town,
such as there would have been in our city had there been news of a
victory, or even of some hundreds of the enemy's horses well driven. For
then as now the town hated its Duke. And so they were all silent.

"Then in the darkness we came to the castle, and the word was: 'Dismount,
and to the shambles!' Me and my like they meddled not with, but only the
great ones. And it was then, as I told you, that I saw Prince Dietrich
with the little maid in his arms. I had carried her part of the way for
him, and faithfully delivered her up again, feeding her with the choicest
meats I could obtain when she could eat. But she was tired, mostly, and
would not look at food. So for this he gave me her necklace from about
her pretty neck. But the rest of her noble golden gear, the belt and the
clasps, were upon the maid when the headsman of Thorn delivered her to
one that stood near by. So, being almost asleep with weariness and
exhausted with terror, they carried her away, and I saw the maid no more.

"But the Prince Dietrich Hohenfriedberg was beheaded within the hour,
and, as is their hellish custom, his body was thrown to the Duke's
blood-hounds that were clamoring all the time behind their fence.

"God help us--such a disaster that night was for Plassenburg