Into this red glare the small boat and its four occupants entered, and Roland saw with a smile that two well-filled casks formed its freight.  The bales were now aboard the barge again, and the Commander ordered the crew to help the quartette in the small boat with the lifting of the heavy barrels.  Greusel and Ebearhard clambered over the side, and came thus to the ledge where Roland stood, as the crew rolled the barrels down into the cabin.

“Lieutenants,” said the Commander, “select two stout battle-axes from that heap.  Follow the chain up the hill until you reach that point where it is attached to the thick rope.  Cut the rope with your axes, and draw down the chain with you, thus clearing a passage for the barge.”

The two men chose battle-axes, then turned to their leader.

“Should we not get our men aboard,” they said, “before the barge is free?”

“These rebels are prisoners of the Red Margrave.  They belong to him, and not to me.  Where they are, there they remain.”

The lieutenants, with one impulse, advanced to their Commander, who frowned as they did so.  A cry of despair went up from the pinioned men, but Kurzbold shouted: 

“Cut him down, Ebearhard, and then release us.  In the name of the guild I call on you to act!  He is unarmed; cut him down!  ’Tis foul murder to desert us thus.”

The cutting down could easily have been accomplished, for Roland stood at their mercy, weaponless since the emeute on the barge.  Notwithstanding the seriousness of the occasion, the optimistic Ebearhard laughed, although every one else was grave enough.

“Thank you, Kurzbold, for your suggestion.  We have come forward, not to use force, but to try persuasion.  Roland, you cannot desert to death the men whom you conducted out of Frankfort.”

“Why can I not?”

“I should have said a moment ago that you will not, but now I say you cannot.  Kurzbold has just shown what an irreclaimable beast he is, and on that account, because birth, or training, or something has made you one of different caliber, you cannot thus desert him to the reprisal of that red fiend up the hill.”

“If I save him now, ’twill be but to hang him an hour later.  I am no hangman, while the Margrave is.  I prefer that he should attend to my executions.”

Again Ebearhard laughed.

“’Tis no use, Roland, pretending abandonment, for you will not abandon.  I thoroughly favor choking the life out of Kurzbold, and one or two of the others, and will myself volunteer for the office of headsman, carrying, as I do, the ax, but let everything be done decently and in order, that a dignified execution may follow on a fair trial.”

“Commander,” shouted the captain from the deck of the barge, “make haste, I beg of you.  The rope connecting with the Castle has been burnt, and the chain is dragging free.  The current is swift, and this barge heavy.  We shall be away within the minute.”