“Greater than at present oppresses it?”

“Civil war, fire, and bloodshed.  Close the door, Roland; I am tired out, and I do not wish to be overheard.”

The Prince obeyed the request, locking the door.  Going to a cupboard, he produced a generous flagon of wine and a tankard, setting the same on a small table before Greusel, then he threw himself down in the one armchair the room possessed.  Greusel filled the tankard, and emptied it without drawing breath.  He plunged directly into his narrative.

“I had penetrated less than half a league into the forest when I was stopped by an armed man who stepped out from behind a tree.  He wore the uniform of Mayence, and proclaimed me a prisoner.  I explained my mission, but this had no effect upon him.  He asked if I would go with him quietly, or compel him to call assistance.  Being helpless, I said I would go quietly.  Notwithstanding this, he bound my wrists behind me, then with a strip of cloth blindfolded me.  Taking me by the arm, he led me through the forest for a distance impossible to calculate.  I think, however, we walked not more than ten minutes.  There was a stop and a whispered parley; a pause of a few minutes, and a further conference, which I partially heard.  The commander before whom I must be taken was not ready to receive me.  I should be placed in a tent, and a guard set over me.

“This was done.  I asked that the cord, which hurt my wrists, might be removed, but instead, my ankles were tied together, and I sat there on the ground, leaning against a pole at the back of the tent.  Here my conductor left me, and I heard him give orders to those without to maintain a strict watch, but to hold no communication with me.

“I imagine that the tent I occupied stood back to back with the tent of the commander, for after some time I heard the sound of voices, and it seemed to me voices of two men in authority.  They had come to the back part of their tent, as if to speak confidentially, and their voices were low, yet I could hear them quite distinctly, being separated from them merely by two thicknesses of cloth.  What I learned was this.  There is concealed in the forest, within half an hour’s quick march of the southern gate, a force of seven thousand soldiers.  These soldiers belong to the Archbishop of Mayence, who commands an additional three thousand within the walls of Frankfort.  Mayence holds the southern gate, as Treves holds the western and Cologne the northern.  You see at once what that implies.  Mayence can pour his troops into Frankfort, say, at midnight, and in the morning he has ten thousand soldiers as compared with the three thousand each commanded by the Archbishops of Treves and Cologne.  That means civil war, and the complete crushing of the two northern Archbishops.”