“Why didn’t you say all this last night, Greusel?”

“Last night my whole attention was concentrated on inducing Kurzbold to forget that you had threatened the company with a hangman’s rope.  Had he remembered that, I could never have carried the vote of confidence.  But you surely saw that the other men were most anxious to support you if your case was placed fairly before them, a matter which, for some reason, you thought it beneath your dignity to attempt.”

“My dear Joseph, your wholesale censure this morning does much to nullify the vote I received last night.”

“My dear Roland, I am not censuring you at all; I am merely endeavoring to place facts before you so that you will recognize them.”

“Quite so, but what I complain of is that these facts were not exhibited in time for me to shoulder or shirk the responsibility.  I do not believe that military operations can be successfully carried on by a little family party, the head of which must coddle the others in the group, and beg pardon before he says ‘Devil take you!’ I would not have accepted the leadership last night had I known the conditions.”

“Well, it is not yet too late to recede.  The barge does not leave Frankfort until this evening, and it is but two leagues back to that city.  Within half an hour at the farthest, every man of us will be assembled here.  Now is the time to have it out with them, because to-morrow morning the opportunity to withdraw will be gone.”

“It is too late even now, Greusel.  If last night the guild could not make up the money we owe to Goebel, what hope is there that a single coin remains in their pockets this morning?  Do I understand, then, that you refuse to act as my lieutenant?”

“No; but I warn you it will be a step in the wrong direction.  You are quite sure of me; and as merely a man-at-arms, as you called us last night, I shall be in a better position to speak in your favor than if I were indebted to you for promotion from the ranks.”

“I see.  Therefore you counsel me to nominate Kurzbold?”

“I do.”

“Why not Gensbein, who was nearly as mutinous as Kurzbold?”

“Well, Gensbein, if you prefer him.”

“He showed a well-balanced mind last night, being part of the time on one side and part on the other.”

“My dear commander, we were all against you last night, when you spoke of hanging, and even when you only went as far as expulsion.”

“Yes, I suppose you were, and the circumstances being such as you state, doubtless you were justified.  I am to command, then, a regiment that may obey or not, according to the whim of the moment; a cheering prospect, and one I had not anticipated.  When I received the promise of twenty men that they would carry out faithfully whatever I undertook on their behalf, I expected them to stand by it.”

“I think you are unjust, Roland.  No one has refused, and probably no one will.  If any one disobeys a command, then you can act as seems best to you, but I wish you fully to realize the weakness of your status should it come to drastic punishment.”