“Your words are welcome were I but sure of their truth,” said the lady with deep distrust in her tone, for she had had experience of the Archbishop’s craft on many occasions, and the untimely hour of the succour led her to fear a ruse. “I open my gates neither to friend nor to foe in the darkness,” she added. “Tis a rule that may well be commended to others of your bewitching sex,” replied the Count, “but we ask not the opening of the gates, although you might warn those within your courtyard to beware what comes upon them presently.” So saying, he gave the word, and each two of his servitors seized a sack of bread by the ends and, heaving it, flung it over the wall. Some of the sacks fell short, but the second effort sent them into the courtyard, where many of them burst, scattering the round loaves along the cobble-stoned pavement, to be eagerly pounced upon by the starving servitors and such men-at-arms as had escaped from the encounter with the Archbishop’s troops when the Baron was slain. The cries of joy that rang up from within the castle delighted the ear of the Count and softened the suspicion of the lady on the wall. “Now,” cried Konrad to his Captain, “back to Schloss Hochstaden before the dawn approaches too closely, and let there be no mistake in the Archbishop’s camp that you are on the way.” They all departed in a series of earsplitting, heart-appalling whoops that shattered the still night air and made a vocal pandemonium of that portion of the fair Rhine valley. The colour left the cheeks of the Lady of Bernstein as she listened in palpable terror to the fiendish outcry which seemed to scream for blood and that instantly, looking down she saw the Knight of Hochstaden still there at the foot of her wall gazing up at her. “My Lord,” she said with concern, “if you stay thus behind your noisy troop you will certainly be captured when it comes day.” “My Lady of Bernstein, I am already a captive, and all the Archbishop’s men could not hold me more in thrall did they surround me at this moment.” “I do not understand you, sir,” said Brunhilda coldly, drawing herself up with a dignity that well became her, “your language seems to partake of an exaggeration that doubtless you have learned in the tropical East, and which we have small patience with on the more temperate banks of the Rhine.” “The language that I use, fair Brunhilda, knows neither east nor west; north nor south, but is common to every land, and if it be a stranger to the Rhine, the Saints be witness ‘tis full time ‘twere introduced here, and I hold myself as competent to be its spokesman, as those screeching scoundrels of mine hold themselves the equal in battle to all the archbishops who ever wore the robes of that high office.” “My Lord,” cried Brunhilda, a note of serious warning in her voice, “my gates are closed and they remain so. I hold myself your debtor for unasked aid, and would fain see you in a place of safety.”