“I did not wait to see anything more, but came down to the foot of the stairs, that I might learn if Roland took his money to his dissolute comrades.  He came out, and once more I followed him, and once more he led me to the Rheingold cellar.  On this occasion, however, I took step by step with him until we entered the large wineroom at the foot of the stairs, he less than an arm’s length in front of me, still under the illusion that he was alone.  Prince though he was, I determined to expostulate with him, and if possible persuade a restitution of the gold.

“‘Your Highness!’ I began, touching him lightly on the shoulder.

“Instantly he turned upon me with a savage oath, grasped me by the throat, and forced me backward against the cellar wall.

“‘You spying sneak!’ he cried.  ’In spite of my warning you have been hounding my footsteps!’

“The moment I attempted to reply, he throttled me so as to choke every effort at utterance.  There now approached us, with alarm in his wine-colored face, a gross, corpulent man, whom the Prince addressed as proprietor of the place, which doubtless he was.

“‘Landlord,’ said Roland very quietly, ’this unfortunate monk is weak in the head, and although he means no harm with his meddling, he may well cause disaster to my comrades and myself.  Earlier in the evening he accosted on the bridge, but I spared him, hoping never to see his monkish costume again.  You may judge the state of his mind when I tell you he accuses me of being the Emperor’s son, and Heaven only knows what he would estimate to be the quality of my comrades were he to see them.’

“Two or three times I attempted to speak, but the closing of his fingers upon my throat prevented me, and even when they were slightly relaxed I was scarcely able to breathe.”

The Countess listened with the closest attention, fixing upon the narrator her splendid eyes, and in them, despite their feminine beauty and softness, seemed to smoulder a deep fire of resentment at the treatment accorded her kinsman, a luminant of danger transmitted to her down the ages from ancestors equally ready to fight for the Sepulcher in Palestine or for the gold on the borders of the Rhine.  In the pause, during which the monk wiped from his wrinkled brow the moisture brought there by remembrance of the indignity he had undergone, kindliness in the eyes of the Countess overcame their menace, and she said gently: 

“I am quite confident, Father, that such a ruffian could not be Prince Roland.  He was indeed the rude mechanic he proclaimed himself.  No man of noble blood would have acted thus.”

“Listen, my child, listen,” resumed Father Ambrose.  “Turning to the landlord, the Prince asked: 

“’Is there a safe and vacant room in your establishment where I could bestow this meddlesome priest for a few days?’

“‘There is a wine vault underneath this drinking cellar,’ responded the landlord.