“Ay,” he said at last; “’tis like to be true. Count Bernard rode this way with the babe, meaning to leave him with our cousin at St. Ursula; for his mother was dead, and he was off to the Holy Land. He must have missed the convent road and got on the wrong way. Thou art strongly like him in looks, lad.” His voice was shaking, but Wulf noted it not; for he had drawn near to Karl, who was bending over the wan prisoner. The boy’s heart was nearly broken with pity. Was this his father, this doleful figure now resting against Karl, wholly unable to support itself? Gently Wulf pressed the armorer back and took the slight weight in his strong young arms. “’Tis mine to do, an ye all speak truth,” he said. Few were the dry eyes in that company as Wulf circled the frail body to him and the weary head rested itself quietly against his breast. “See that he is cared for,” the emperor said at last, and from the throng came the noblest of those knights to carry the count into the castle. Wulf would have gone with them, but Rudolf called him back. “Stand forth,” he said, pointing to a spot just before him, and Wulf obeyed. “Thou’st fought well to-day, boy,” Rudolf went on. “But for thy ready wit, that led thy fellows by a way to fall upon the foe from behind, this castle had been long in the winning, and our work by that much hindered. Thou hast proven thy gentle blood by the knightly deed thou didst by the young maid, now our own ward, and sure are we that thou’rt the son of our loved comrade Count Bernard von Wulfstanger. Kneel down.” Then, as Wulf knelt, fair dazed by the surging of his own blood in his ears, the emperor laid drawn sword across his bowed shoulders. “Rise, Herr Wulf von Wulfstanger,” he said. The young knight, trembling like any timid maid, got to his feet again, though how he could not have told. “He’ll need thy nursing a bit, Karl,” Rudolf of Hapsburg said, an amused smile playing about his grim mouth; and our Wulf never knew that the old armorer more carried than led him away to quiet and rest. [Illustration: “THE EMPEROR LAID DRAWN SWORD ACROSS HIS BOWED SHOULDERS.”] Not all in a day was order restored at the Swartzburg; for many and woeful had been the deeds of the high-handed robber who had so long ruled within those grim walls. They came to light little by little under the searching of the emperor’s wardens; and when the parchments relating to the Swartzburg properties came to be examined, it was found that not the baron, nor Conradt, his heir-at-law, had all along been owner of the castle, but young Elise von Hofenhoer, whose guardian the treacherous noble had been. There were other outlying lands, as well, from which the baron had long collected the revenues, and it was to keep his hold on that which he had so evilly gotten that he would have married Elise to Conradt, his nephew and ready tool.