"You forget it was a holiday," replied the other, "so that I had a good excuse not to open my pack, and recommend my goods for sale, according to the custom of pedlars. But I had sufficient proof of the security of my disguise, for I sold a box of healing plaster to George von Fronsberg, God knows, I would gladly have come to blows with him, and given him an opportunity on the spot to make use of it. They were still at high mass in the church, and no one in the inn; but I learned from the master of the house, that the knights in the castle had agreed to a truce till Easter Monday. When church service was over, many knights and other men came, as I expected, into the room where I was, for their morning's potation. I seated myself in a corner on the bench near the stove, the proper place for people of my condition in the presence of their superiors." "Who did you see there?" inquired the Duke. "I knew some of them by sight, and guessed who others were from their conversation. There was Fronsberg, Alban von Closen, the Huttens, Sickingen, and many others. Truchses von Waldburg came in shortly after. When I saw him enter, I drew my cap deep over my face, for he cannot have forgotten the whirl I gave him from his horse some fifteen years ago by a thrust of my lance." "Did you see Hans von Breitenstein among the rest?" asked Albert. "Breitenstein?--not that I know; ah! yes, that's his name who will eat a leg of mutton at a sitting. Well, they began to talk of the siege and the truce, and some of them whispered to each other, but as I have very good ears, I heard just what of all things was most essential to know. Truchses related that he shot an arrow into the castle, with a note attached to it, addressed to Ludwig von Stadion. It appears that he must often have practised the same device, for the knights were not astonished, when he added, that he had received an answer the same day by similar means." The Duke's countenance became clouded. "Ludwig von Stadion!" he cried in agony; "I would have staked castles upon his fidelity! I loved him so, that I satisfied all his desires, and he is the first to betray me!" "The answer said, that he, Stadion, with many others, being tired of the contest, were more than half inclined to surrender; George von Hewen, however, threatened to denounce them as traitors." "I have not merited such friendship from Hewen," said Ulerich. "I was once offended with him, for having complained that I had not acted according to his wishes. But how easily are we deceived in the characters of men! Had any one asked me which of these two I had most faith in, I would have named Stadion as my trusty friend, and George von Hewen the doubtful one."