n looked over his shoulder up at me.

_"Hugo Gottfried, have I not saved my soul?"_ she cried.

And so passed.

CHAPTER LVI

HELENA, PRINCESS OF PLASSENBURG

There was, however, deadly work yet before the men of Plassenburg. We
found, indeed, that the townsfolk were with us almost to a man. Their
guild train-bands gathered and mustered at their halls. The guards at the
city gates fraternally turned their arms to the ground.

"The Prince will restore your ancient liberties!" I cried. And the people
shouted. "Prince Karl of Plassenburg and our ancient liberties!"

Then we made our way up the street by different routes to the Wolfsberg.
There was little fighting till we arrived under those vast and gloomy
walls. The Black Riders had disappeared within. Those worst tools of grim
tyranny had early withdrawn themselves, knowing that small mercy would be
shown them by the people if once the Wolfsberg were taken. But the common
soldiers of the fighting rank, sons and brothers of the women of Thorn,
tore off the badge of the bloody Dukes and with loud shouts marched with
us as comrades.

But when we came before the walls, and with sound of trumpet and loud
shouts summoned the Wolfsberg to surrender, a discharge of musketry from
the walls, and the determined faces of a multitude of defenders showed us
conclusively that all was not yet over.

It was no use wasting men in attacking the great pile of buildings
with the force at our disposal. We had men in plenty, but for
breeching we needed the cannon left behind by these swift forces,
which, marching day and night, had arrived in the very nick of time
before the walls of Thorn.

Nevertheless, it was not the fate of the Wolfsberg to be taken by Lazy
Peg and her compeers.

These ponderous pieces of ordnance were presently being dragged through
the swamps and over the brick-dust barrens of the borderlands, and it
might be three or four days before they could arrive to aid us. There was
nothing, therefore, to do but to sit down and wait, drawing a cincture
that not a mouse could creep through about the cliffs of the Wolfsberg.

But deep within the heart of the old Red Tower there was one stronger
than Lazy Peg fighting for us.

"Fire! Fire!" cried the people in the streets. "The Wolfsberg is on
fire!" And so, surely, it was. The flames burst out from the windows
of the Red Tower and were rapidly carried by a dry fanning northerly
wind along the wooden workshops