Max reached the inn unmolested. We donned our mail shirts, expecting trouble, and took turn and turn watching and sleeping. Next day we hired two stalwart Irish squires and armed them cap-a-pie. We meant to give our Italian friends a hot welcome if they attacked us, though we had, in truth, little fear of an open assault. We dreaded more a dagger thrust in the back, or trouble from court through the machinations of Campo-Basso. The next morning Max sent one of our Irishmen to Castleman's house with a verbal message to Fräulein Castleman. When the messenger returned, he replied to my question:-- "I was shown into a little room where three ladies sat. 'What have you to say?' asked the little black-haired one in the corner--she with the great eyes and the face pale as a chalk-cliff. I said, 'I am instructed, mesdames, to deliver this simple message: Sir Max is quite well.' 'That will do. Thank you.' said the big eyes and the pale face. Then she gave me two gold florins. The money almost took my breath, and when I looked up to thank her, blest if the white face wasn't rosy as a June dawn. When I left, she was dancing about the room singing and laughing, and kissing everybody but me--worse luck! By Saint Patrick, I never saw so simple a message create so great a commotion. 'Sir Max is quite well.' I'm blest if he doesn't look it. Was he ever ill?" After five or six days we allowed ourselves to fall into a state of unwatchfulness. One warm evening we dismissed our squires for an hour's recreation. The Cologne River flows by the north side of the inn garden, and, the spot being secluded, Max and I, after dark, cooled ourselves by a plunge in the water. We had come from the water and finished dressing, save for our doublets, which lay upon the sod, when two men approached whom we thought to be our squires. When first we saw them, they were in the deep shadow of the trees that grew near the water's edge, and we did not notice their halberds until they were upon us. When the men had approached within four yards, we heard a noise back of us and turning saw four soldiers, each bearing an arquebuse pointed in our direction. At the same moment another man stepped from behind the two we had first seen and came quickly to me. He was Count Calli. In his left hand he held a parchment. Max and I were surrounded and unarmed. "I arrest you on the order of His Grace, the duke," said Calli, in low tones, speaking French with an Italian accent. "Your authority?" I demanded. "This," he said, offering me the parchment, "and this," touching his sword. I took the parchment but could not read it in the dark. "I'll go to the inn to read your warrant," I said, stooping to take up my doublet. "You will do nothing of the sort," he answered. "One word more from you, and there will be no need to arrest you. I shall be only too glad to dispense with that duty."