"Then you took her out of prison yourself? That was settling the matter in the right way." "Nay, Count Gerhard. Rather than I should have dealt so contumaciously with the laws, the unfortunate woman had been left to her fate." "What the deuce have you done, then?" "I went to the queen--" "Aha! I can understand. Happy knight! But why did you not allow me to crave a boon for the poor old creature? I have still a heart in my body, I know; and I should not have risen from the queen's feet, nor taken her hand from my burning lips, till the carlin had been saved, even had it been till gray in the morning." "You talk too much for your wound, noble count; and you think on matters that do not tend to calm your blood. I shall now send my liberated nurse to watch over you; and, if you must still talk enthusiastically of beauty, talk so, in God's name, only before her: and sleep well." So saying, Drost Peter left his merry, sick guest, and immediately afterwards a wrinkled old woman hobbled into the apartment, and sat down by the count's pillow; but he closed his eyes in vexation, and would not notice her. It was midnight, and Drost Peter walked restlessly up and down his chamber. He had reassured his knightly guests, and left them to repose. But the royal surgeon had not arrived, and the jester would not believe that his master was out of danger. In a closet, by the side of the count's bed-chamber, sat the grave joker, listening at the door, to be at hand at the slightest disturbance he might hear. Drost Peter could not think of going to sleep. He was not, indeed, alarmed for his wounded guest, but still wished to be ready, at any moment, to go to his aid, should he be called by the nurse. His thoughts, besides, were in a tumult, that forbade him to think of repose. His adventure with Henner Friser and little Aasé, and his strong suspicion of the king's participation in the affair, disquieted him. The crafty Chamberlain Rané's escape, and the revenge he might, with reason, apprehend from this royal favourite, ran likewise in his thoughts. Deep suspicions of a conspiracy, of which he had in vain endeavoured to apprise the king, appeared to him now, in the night's loneliness, of greater importance, the more he dwelt upon it. His strife with Count Gerhard, and its occasion, also caused him the greatest uneasiness. The report, so injurious to his own and the queen's honour, which he had first learnt upon this occasion, troubled him more particularly; and he examined with scrupulous care the whole of the last year of his life, from the day he first held conversation with Queen Agnes, at Helsingborg tournament. He could not deny that her beauty and noble feminine graces, as well as her bold and resolute character, exercised a wonderful power over him. He owed, undeniably, to the queen's favour, his rapid rise from a simple knight to be drost of the kingdom; and, though it vexed him much, that he should, in consequence, be blamed as