By now the nobles and knights of Rudolf’s army were gathered about; but none spoke, for pity. Then the emperor caused all the knights of the Swartzburg to be summoned, and he questioned them close, but not one of them knew who the man might be, or why he was a prisoner at the Swartzburg. Indeed, of all the company, only one or two knew that such a prisoner had been held in the keep. Of the two men who might have told his name, one lay dead in the great hall, and one was riding from the Swartzburg, an outlaw. But the emperor was troubled. A haunting something in that seemingly empty face drew his very heartstrings, and fain would he have known the man’s name. Then suddenly through the press of knights and nobles rushed Karl the armorer, and clasped the woeful figure in his arms, while he trembled and sobbed with wrath and sorrow. “Oh, my lord!” he cried, bringing the man closer before Rudolf. “Look upon this! Knowest thou not who ’tis?” The emperor had grown very white, and he passed one hand over his eyes. “Nay,” he said; “it is never—it cannot be—” “Oh, my lord! my lord!” sobbed the armorer, his great chest heaving and the tears streaming down from his unashamed eyes. “It _is_ the count—Count Bernard himself, thine old comrade, whom thou and I didst love. Look upon him!” So white now was the emperor that his face was like death; but it was set in fierce wrath, too, as, little by little, he began to see that Karl might be right. He bent forward and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Bernard, friend Bernard!” he called loudly, that the dulled senses might take in his words. “Bernard, dost know me?” Slowly the other looked up; a dim light seemed to gather in his eyes. “Ay, Rudolf,” he whispered hoarsely; then the light went out, and he shrank back again. “There is a tale I would have told your Majesty,” Karl said, recovering himself, “an the herald had not come just as he did on the night before last”; and then, seeing Wulf in the throng, he called him to come forward. Wondering, the boy obeyed, while, with a hand on his arm, Karl told the emperor all that he had been able to tell Wulf that day at the forge—of the battle between the knights, of how he had thereafter found the stranger child in the osiers, and how he had kept the blade which Herr Banf had won. “Now know I of surety,” he said at last, “that that knight was Count Bernard von Wulfstanger; but who this boy may be I can only guess.” Now a voice spoke from amid the throng. Hansei, who had been edging nearer and nearer, could keep silence no longer. “That would be the ‘shining knight’s’ treasure! Well I remember it, your Majesty!” he cried. “What meanest thou?” demanded Rudolf; and there before them all Hansei told what the children saw from the playground on the plateau that day so many years agone. The emperor’s face grew thoughtful as he looked at Wulf from under lowered brows.