“Very well; I intend you to be entrapped by that chain to-night.  Offer no resistance, and you will be safe enough.  Do not attempt to help these lads should they be set upon, and it will be hard luck if I am not in command again before midnight.  Keep close to this shore, but if they order you into the middle of the river, or across it, dally, my good Blumenfels, dally, until you are stopped by the chain for the third time.”

When the captain returned to his barge, he found Kurzbold pacing the deck in a masterly manner, impatient to be off.  For once the combatants, with an effort, were refraining from drink.

“We will open a cask,” said Kurzbold, “as soon as we have passed the Schloss.”

He ordered the captain to follow the shore as closely as was safe, and take care that they did not come within sight of Furstenberg’s tall, round tower.  All sat or reclined on the dark deck, saying no word as the barge slid silently down the swift Rhine.  Suddenly the speed of the boat was checked so abruptly that one or two of the standing men were flung off their feet.  From up on the hillside there tolled out the deep note of a bell.  The barge swung round broadside on the current, and lay there with the water rushing like hissing serpents along its side, the bell pealing out a loud alarm that seemed to keep time with the shuddering of the helpless boat.

“What’s wrong, captain?” cried Kurzbold, getting on his feet again and running aft.

“I fear, sir, ’tis an anchored chain.”

“Can’t you cut it?”

“That is impossible, mein Herr.”

“Then get out your sweeps, and turn back.  Where are we, do you think?”

“Under the battlements of Furstenberg Castle.”

“Damnation!  Put some speed into your men, and let us get away from here.”

The captain ordered his crew to hurry, but all their efforts could not release the boat from the chain, against which it ground up and down with a tearing noise, and even the un-nautical swordsmen saw that the current was impelling it diagonally toward the shore, and all the while the deep bell tolled on.

“What in the fiend’s name is the meaning of that bell?” demanded Kurzbold.

“It is the Castle bell, mein Herr,” replied the captain.

Before Kurzbold could say anything more the air quivered with shout after shout of laughter.  Torches began to glisten among the trees, and there was a clatter of horses’ hoofs on the echoing rock.  A more magnificent sight was never before presented to the startled eyes of so unappreciative a crowd.  Along the zigzag road, and among the trees, spluttered the torches, each with a trail of sparks like the tail of a comet.  The bearers were rushing headlong down the slope, for woe to the man who did not arrive at the water’s edge sooner than his master.