He need not have wondered. Had not that minstrel wandered half over Germany expressly to sing under those walls? Hardly had the moon been up an hour, thus lighting a fearful way among those ledges, when step by step, hand over hand, up climbed the boyish form of Blondel, by a footpath way not by the guarded road, and with his harp upon his back. A moment to rest, a moment to take breath and to turn with his golden key the peg that tightened a string,--then soft, low, trembling like the wind that sweeps aimlessly, ceaselessly through the sighing forest branches came the throbbing melody as the slender fingers strayed across the wires! whispering a song of love of bygone days when two were wandering under a glad, sunny sky in a free land, where birds in the near-by forest were nest-building, where sorrow, clouds and darkness were unknown. Then as the moonlight shone like a star on the steel helmet of the watcher who leaned so breathlessly over the battlements, into the night air far below him swung the rich, resonant voice of the musician, the words clear and cleancut, and of such a penetrating sweetness that the ironsheathed warrior above all unconsciously leaned still further over the stonework, and, hardened though he was, made no pretense to stop slow tears that came to his eyes and fell, drop by drop, to glitter like diamonds among the rough rocks far below. The singer ceased. But the harp still kept up its rhythmic humming; and presently, muffled by distance and winding passages, as it seemed out from the very stones of the rugged tower, in a voice, harsh, strong, yet cultivated, came the second verse of that love-song, sung with a full heart, throbbing with a newborn hope, sung as never before had it been rendered in the old days when Blondel had taught it to Richard in sun-scorched Palestine! The watcher sprang up at his post, troubled, alert. What did this portend? He leaned over to seek that minstrel who sang to prisoners, and send an arrow through him; but the minstrel had disappeared; nor was he heard from for weary weeks; but then came from England a demand for release so peremptory that Henry sulkily felt compelled to accept the ransom money and set King Richard free. Blithely the King took leave of his surly host whose hotel bill was so high, as is somewhat the fashion in that region to this day. The sun shone gloriously as it seemed sun never shone before. The birds made the air ring with music. Yet no melody that Richard ever heard again was likely to seem as sweet to him as did that song of Blondel's when it came stealing so helpfully through the narrow slits that served as windows in his dungeon cell.