With that he mounted his horse, for he guessed that Schalk would try to be before him and pocket some of Cuno’s valuables before he arrived. But when he reached the fish-pond the two brothers met, and each blushed with shame, for each knew he had tried to be before his brother, and cheat him of part of the inheritance. They rode along together and never mentioned Cuno, but discussed how they should settle affairs in the future, and how they should decide which of them should own Hirschberg. But when they had crossed the drawbridge and entered the courtyard they saw their brother looking out of the window, quite hale and hearty. But his eyes flashed with wrath as he glanced at his two brothers. They were very much afraid at first, for they thought it must be Cuno’s ghost; but as soon as they discovered he was alive and well, Wolf said sheepishly, “Why, I thought you were dead, brother!” Schalk said very little, but if looks could have killed, Cuno would have had but a short time to live. Then Cuno cried in a voice of thunder: “From this time I renounce all relationship between us. I heard the firing of cannons from your two castles and understood very well how you were making merry over my death. I have five field-pieces here at Hirschberg and I have had them loaded, and unless you make haste to get beyond range of the bullets you shall judge what sort of marksmen we have here at Hirschberg.” They did not need a second warning, for they saw he meant what he said, and so they set spurs to their horses and raced down the hill. Cuno fired a cannon ball over their heads, not meaning to harm them, but merely to give them a good fright. On their way down they began to quarrel as to who was to blame, both declaring he had fired his cannon solely because he had heard his brother firing. So bitter were they that when at length they parted company each vowed he hated and detested his brother worse even than Cuno. Soon afterwards Cuno made his will, but he told no one what was in it. The old woman plagued her favourite sorely to tell her if he had left anything to his brothers, but he would not, and in the end she never knew, for she died the following year. All her pills and potions could not help her then, for she was ninety-eight years old, and the disease she died of was “old age,” which the cleverest doctor in the world cannot cure. Count Cuno laid her to rest with every mark of respect and sorrow. It was not long before the old chaplain also left him, and then he became a very lonely man. But his loneliness was not for long, for Cuno, the good, died in his twenty-eighth year. Some said he was poisoned by his brothers, but whether it were so or no, no one ever really knew. Again the country resounded with the roar of cannons, twenty-five rounds being fired from the castles of Zollern and Schalksberg. “Well, there is no mistake this time,” said Schalk, as he met his brother Wolf on the road.