“Yes, your Majesty—­I mean, my lord.”

“No, you mean my Holiness, for I expect to be an Archbishop yet, if all goes well,” and his laughter echoed across the Rhine.  “Uplift your hatches, Blumenfels, and tell your men to help fling the goods ashore.”

Delicately paced the fearful horse over the prone men, snorting, perhaps in sympathy, from his red nostrils, his jet-black coat a-quiver with the excitement of the scene.  The captain obeyed the Margrave with promptness and celerity.  The hatches were lifted, and his sailors, two and two, flung on the ledge of rock the merchant’s bales.  The men-at-arms, who proved to be men-of-all-work, had piled their weapons in a heap, and were carrying the bales a few yards inland.  Through it all the Baron roared with laughter, and rode his horse along its living pavement, turning now at this end and now at the other.

“Do not be impatient,” he cried down to them, “’twill not take long to strip the boat of every bale, then I shall hang you on these trees, and send back your bodies in the barge, as a lesson to Frankfort.  You must return, captain,” he cried, “for you cannot sell dead bodies to my liege of Cologne.”

As he spoke a ruddy flush spread over the Rhine, as if some one had flashed a red lantern upon the waters.  The glow died out upon the instant.

“What!” thundered the Margrave, “is that the reflection of my beard, or are Beelzebub and his fiends coming up from below for a portion of the Frankfort cloth?  I will share with good brother Satan, but with no one else.  Boil me if I ever saw a sight like that before!  What was it, captain?”

“I saw nothing unusual, my lord.”

“There, there!” exclaimed the Margrave, and as he spoke it seemed that a crimson film had fallen on the river, growing brighter and brighter.

“Oh, my lord,” cried the captain, “the Castle is on fire!”

“Saints protect us!” shouted the Red Margrave, crossing himself, and turning to the west, where now both hearing and sight indicated that a furnace was roaring.  The whole western sky was aglow, and although the flames could not be seen for the intervening cliff, every one knew there was no other dwelling that could cause such an illumination.

Spurring his horse, and calling his men to come on, the nobleman dashed up the steep acclivity, and when the last man had departed, Roland, followed by his two lieutenants, stepped from the forest to the right down upon the rocky plateau.

XIII

“A SENTENCE; COME, PREPARE!”

“Captain,” said Roland quietly, “bring your crew ashore, and fling these bales on board again as quickly as you can.”

An instant later the sailors were at work, undoing their former efforts.

“In mercy’s name, Roland,” wailed one of the stricken, “get a sword and cut our bonds.”

“All in good time,” replied Roland.  “The bales are more valuable to me than you are, and we have two barrels of gold at the foot of the cliff to bring in, if they haven’t sunk in the Rhine.  Greusel, do you and Ebearhard take two of the crew, launch the small boat, and rescue the barrels if you can find them.”