“I can’t positively say that I saw any Hohenzollern, but I did see their armies turned back from Paris by those ignorant people, led by their demagogues.  I’m not even sure of the name of the French general who did it, but God gave him a better brain for war, though he may have been born a peasant for all I know, than he did to your Kaiser, or any king, prince, grand duke or duke in all the German armies!”

John had been tried beyond endurance and he knew that he had spoken with impulsive passion, but he knew also that he had spoken with truth.  The face of Auersperg darkened.  The medieval baron, full of power, without responsibility, believing implicitly in what he chose to call his order, but which was merely the chance of birth, was here.  And while the Middle Ages in reality had passed, war could hide many a dark tale.  John was unable to read the intent in the cruel eyes, but they heard the footsteps of von Arnheim on the stairs, and the clenched hand that had been raised fell back by Auersperg’s side.  Nevertheless medievalism did not relax its gaze.

“What to you is this girl who seems to have charmed von Arnheim?” he asked.

“Her brother has become my best friend.  She has charmed me as she has charmed von Arnheim, and as she charms all others whom she meets.  And I am pleased to tell Your Highness that the spell she casts is not alone her beauty, but even more her pure soul.”

Auersperg laughed in an ugly fashion.

“Youth!  Youth!” he exclaimed.  “I see that the spell is upon you, even more than it is upon von Arnheim.  But dismiss her from your thoughts.  You go a prisoner into Germany, and it’s not likely that you’ll ever see her again.”

Young Scott felt a sinking of the heart, but he was not one to show it.

“Prisoners may escape,” he said boldly, “and what has been done once can always be done again.”

“We shall see that it does not happen a second time in your case.  Von Arnheim will dispose of you for the night, and even if you should succeed in stealing from the chateau there is around it a ring of German sentinels through which you could not possibly break.”

Some strange kink appeared suddenly in John’s brain—­he was never able to account for it afterward, though Auersperg’s manner rasped him terribly.

“I mean to escape,” he said, “and I wager you two to one that I do.”

Auersperg sat down and laughed, laughed in a way that made John’s face turn red.  Then he beckoned to von Arnheim.

“Take him away,” he said.  “He is characteristic of his frivolous democracy, frivolous and perhaps amusing, but it is a time for serious not trifling things.”

John was glad enough to go with von Arnheim, who was silent and depressed.  Yet the thought came to him once more that there were princes and princes.  Von Arnheim led the way to a small bare room under the roof.  John saw that there were soldiers in the upper halls as well as the lower, and he was sorry that he had made such a boast to Auersperg.  As he now saw it his chance of escape glimmered into nothing.