Courteous reader, should’st thou ever have been so unfortunate, that the being who, of all the habitants of earth, was by thee the most beloved, and by whom thy sweetest hopes were encouraged with approving smiles, has at once turned away with cold indifference, leaving thee like a benighted wanderer on a desert waste, from whom the moon has suddenly withdrawn her light, then wilt thou sympathize with and understand the deep anguish of Sir Otto von Trautwangen. If this book indeed fell into the hands of one who was more accustomed to inflict such wounds, than to feel them in her own breast, then perhaps a scornful smile would prove the only notice with which he would be honoured. But from such readers kind Heaven will protect me; and I may venture to hope, that every one will compassionate the knight, who was thus in soul so deeply wounded; that every one will rejoice too, when it is farther told, that Sir Otto indulged not in complaints and lamentations; but, with his harp slung over one arm, and his falcon perched on his left hand, he went composedly and quietly on his way to the watch-tower of the Lady Minnatrost. CHAPTER XXV. How the Lady Minnatrost laid aside her veil. When he was now mounting the steep road that led to the Druda’s watch-tower, he heard in the valley below the sounding tramp of a war-horse and the ringing of armour. Involuntarily he looked round, and perceived at no great distance a grey war-steed, rode by a knight, whose appearance, as well as that of the grey horse, was certainly known to him. As he reflected on this, the rider looked up, caught Sir Otto’s features through the thickets of the beech-trees, drew up the reins with a low bow, and said, “Welcome, my noble lord and conqueror! I have now to announce that I am returned from the pilgrimage which you were pleased to impose on me, and that I have faithfully delivered up at the castle of Trautwangen the banner which you took from my brave countrymen.” Thereupon Sir Otto recognised his prisoner, Swerker, and, filled with ardent longing to hear tidings from him, for which the disappointment of all his hopes in love rendered him only the more anxious, he seated himself straightway on the edge of the cliff, and begged that the Swede would describe to him minutely all that he had met with on the banks of the Danube. Swerker looked mournfully and with a pale visage towards him, and at last said,--“Sir knight, I call the great Odin to witness that you have behaved to me even like one of the glorious princes of Asgard; and if I should now, as if thankless and unworthy of your regard, bring you unwelcome tidings from home, blame me not, for the fault is not mine; but, since you command me to speak, I must tell you freely and honestly what has been the result of my embassy.