“Not for me!” exclaimed the prisoner, defiantly, drawing himself up proudly: “not for me, Elsa. You must never ask favour from a robber and a coward like, Count von Schonburg, brave only in his own Judgment Hall.” “Oh, Wilhelm, Wilhelm, have a care what you say, or you will break my heart. And your proclamation is far from true. The Count is a brave man who has time and again proved himself so, and my only hope is that he will prove as merciful as he is undoubtedly courageous. Join your prayers with mine, Wilhelm, and beg for mercy rather than justice.” “I beg from no man, either mercy or justice. I am here, my Lord Count, ready to receive whatever you care to bestow, and I ask you to make the waiting brief for the sake of the women present, for I am I sure the beautiful, white-haired lady there dislikes this traffic in men’s lives as much as does my fair-haired cousin.” “Oh, my lord Count, do not heed what he says; his words but show the recklessness of youth; hold them not against him.” “Indeed I mean each word I say, and had I iron in my hand instead of round my wrists, his Lordship would not sit so calmly facing me.” Elsa, seeing how little she had accomplished with either man began to weep helplessly, and the Count, who had not interrupted the colloquy, listening unmoved to the contumely heaped upon him by the prisoner, now said to the girl: “Have you finished your questioning?” Receiving no answer, he said to the prisoner after a pause: “Why did you move against this castle?” “Because I hoped to take it, burn it, and hang or behead its owner.” “Oh, Wilhelm, Wilhelm!” wailed the girl. “And, having failed, what do you expect?” “To be hanged, or beheaded, depending on whether your Lordship is the more expert with a cord or with an axe.” “You called me a coward, and I might have retorted that in doing so you took advantage of your position as prisoner, but setting that aside, and speaking as man to man, what ground have you for such an accusation?” “We cannot speak as man to man, for I am bound and you are free, but touching the question of your cowardice, I have heard it said by those who took part in the defence of my father’s castle, when you attacked it and destroyed it, commanding a vastly superior force, my father leaped from the wall and dared you to follow him. For a moment, they told me, it seemed that you would accept the challenge, but you contented yourself with calling on others to do what you feared to do yourself, and thus my father, meeting no opposition from a man of his own rank, was compelled to destroy the unfortunate serfs who stood in his way and, so cut out a path to safety. In refusing to accept the plunge he took, you branded yourself a coward, and once a toward always a coward.” “Oh, Wilhelm,” cried Elsa, in deep distress at the young man’s lack of diplomacy, while she could not but admire his ill-timed boldness, “speak not so to the Count, for I am sure what you say is not true.”