In the mean while, the Count of Ehrenstein had followed close upon the steps of those who led the Baron of Eppenfeld to the place of his imprisonment; and the door was not yet fully bolted and barred when he caused it to be opened again, and entered, directing the three soldiers who had conveyed the captive thither to wait at the foot of the stairs till he came out. Then, closing the door behind him, he confronted the prisoner with a stern brow, and teeth close shut. The Baron gave him back look for look; and a smile, slight but sarcastic, curled his lip. "Well, Baron of Eppenfeld," said the Count; and then paused. "Well, Count of Ehrenstein," replied the Baron; and he also stopped in the midst, for the other to go on. "You sent me a message, last night," said the Count; "and you were fool enough, in your drunken sleepiness, not to take advantage of the opportunity given you, and to suffer the hot-headed Count of Leiningen to blow your gates open, when you might have escaped two hours before." "Very unlucky for you, Count," replied the Baron of Eppenfeld, in a tone of provoking coolness. "You should have sent me some answer to my message, and then I should have known how to act." "I could not; I had no time; I had no opportunity," answered the Count of Ehrenstein. "All I could do, after I received that message, was to withdraw my men to the east, and leave you room to escape with all your treasure." "But why answered you not the first," asked the Baron; "the message that I sent you by young Ferdinand of Altenburg?--I thought better of it after a time, it is true, and judged that a short repose in Eppenfeld would do him good; but when he got out, he must have told you what I said, which was just the same thing; and instead of a friendly reply or friendly comment, your first act was to march against me." "And you told Ferdinand of Altenburg?" said the Count, with a moody look. "Pray, what was it you told him?" "The same, as near as may be," answered the Baron, "that I told the other." "The other is dead," replied the Count; "and Ferdinand of Altenburg is in peril. You shall judge, by the way in which I treat him, how I deal with those who possess perilous secrets." Thus saying, he opened the door, called one of the soldiers from the bottom of the stairs, and, when he reached the room, bade him hasten to Karl von Mosbach, and direct him to arrest Ferdinand of Altenburg, and place him in confinement in the dark cell below the lesser hall. "Now, Baron," he said, as soon as the man was gone, "What think you, now?" "That you are a hard-hearted villain," answered the Baron, "and ten times worse than myself, bad as men call me. The youth served you well and boldly; he risked his life, I can tell you, to do your bidding, and this is the way you repay him. But I don't believe it; you will not injure him for any words he has heard from me."