"Faith! I do not know," replied the Count; "but this I do know, that if some birds, who have escaped from _my_ cage, fall into my hands again, I will wring their heads off." "So do men get bloody fingers," answered the jester; "but, after all, who is there among us that has not some stain upon his hand? No one except myself, I warrant. There is a lily palm, with not a drop of Christian blood upon it; and as for the gore of a few stray Saracens, that but cleanses a man's fingers; as a farmer's maiden uses sand, which is dirt, to scrub her father's floor." The Count of Ehrenstein's brow had become doubly dark, but he ventured to give no other sign of his anger at the words of a mere jester; and turning to a man who entered, booted and spurred, just at the conclusion of Herr von Narren's speech, he inquired, "Well, what news? Are there any tidings of them?" "None, my good lord," answered the man; "all the world are so busy with other thoughts, that they seem to have paid no attention to anything but one." "Ay, and what is that one?" said Count Frederick, turning to the messenger also. "Why, the Black Huntsman is out again, my lord," said the man; "and old Seckendorf sent me back to let my lord know that all the country is ringing with his doings. He rode all the way down the valley last night, and some say, went down to the Rhine, while others will have it, that he turned towards Zweibrücken." "Then we must make ready for war, I suppose," replied Count Frederick; "but is the news quite sure?" "Oh, quite," answered the messenger; "we counted more than a hundred horses' feet all the way along the dusty old road upon the top of the hills." "Did they stop at the abbey?" asked the Count of Ehrenstein, with a sneering smile. "No, my lord; they left it far to the left," was the man's answer, "keeping along amongst the hills, until we lost them in the wood, some six miles off." "Well, let it come," said the Count musing, and speaking rather to what was passing in his own thoughts, than in reference to anything that had been said by others; "let it come. It shall go hard, if the tide of war flows through this valley, but that one of the waves shall sweep away the walls of the abbey--ay, and all that are within;" he muttered between his teeth. "My lord, my lord!" cried a man, who was seated near the window; "here comes news at length, or I am mistaken. Some one galloping like mad up from the bridge." "Bring him up quick, as soon as he arrives," cried the Count of Ehrenstein, turning to the attendants behind him; and the meal resumed its course for a few minutes; though few of those principally interested in the events which had taken place during that morning and the preceding night, showed any great appetite for the dainties before them.