after ye
entered, like these other good, careless gentlemen, but with your knife,
outside the door. I see it by your air of one that has been at once under
authority and yet master of a house."

"Well done, good wife!" cried the Prince. "Were I indeed in authority I
would make you either Prime-Minister or chief of my thief-catchers."

And so after that we went to bed.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE BLACK RIDERS

The next day we jogged along, and many were our advices and admonitions
to the Prince to return. For we were now on the borders of his kingdom,
and from indications which met us on the journeying we knew that the
Black Riders were abroad. For in one place we came to a burned cottage
and the tracks of driven cattle; in another upon a dead forest guard,
with his green coat all splashed in splotches of dark crimson, a sight
which made the Prince clinch his hands and swear. And this also kept him
pretty silent for the rest of the day.

It was about evening of this second day, and we had come to the top of a
little swell of hills, when suddenly beneath us we heard the crackling of
timbers and saw the pale, almost invisible flames beginning to devour a
thriving farm-house at our feet. There were swarms of men in dark armor
about it, running here and there, clapping straw and brushwood to
hay-ricks and byre doors.

"The Black Riders of Duke Casimir," I cried; "down among the bushes and
let them not see us! We must go back. If they so much as suspected the
Prince they would slay us every one."

But ere we had time to flee half a dozen of their scouts came near us,
and, observing our horses and excellent accoutrement, they raised a cry.
There was nothing for it but the spurs on the heels of our boots. So
across the smooth, well-turfed country we had it, and in spite of our
beasts' weariness we made good running. And while we fled I considered
how best to serve the Prince.

"There is a monastery near by," said I, "and the head thereof is a good
friend of ours. Let us, if possible, gain that shelter, and cast
ourselves on the kindness of the good Abbot Tobias."

"Aye," said the Prince, urging his horse to speed, "but will we ever
get there?"

Then I called myself all the stupid-heads in the world, because I had not
refused to go a foot with the Prince on such a mad venture, and so put
our future and that of the Princedom of Plassenburg in such peril.

But there at last were the gray walls and high towers of t