of the Duke of Cleves, and indeed each other’s healths all round.  Next day they resumed their march, and continued it without interruption, except to take in a supply of victuals here and there (and it was found on these occasions that Otto, young as he was, could eat four times as much as the oldest archer present, and drink to correspond); and these continued refreshments having given them more than ordinary strength, they determined on making rather a long march of it, and did not halt till after nightfall at the gates of the little town of Windeck.

What was to be done? the town-gates were shut.  “Is there no hostel, no castle where we can sleep?” asked Otto of the sentinel at the gate.  “I am so hungry that in lack of better food I think I could eat my grandmamma.”

The sentinel laughed at this hyperbolical expression of hunger, and said, “You had best go sleep at the Castle of Windeck yonder;” adding with a peculiarly knowing look, “Nobody will disturb you there.”

At that moment the moon broke out from a cloud, and showed on a hill hard by a castle indeed—­but the skeleton of a castle.  The roof was gone, the windows were dismantled, the towers were tumbling, and the cold moonlight pierced it through and through.  One end of the building was, however, still covered in, and stood looking still more frowning, vast, and gloomy, even than the other part of the edifice.

“There is a lodging, certainly,” said Otto to the sentinel, who pointed towards the castle with his bartizan; “but tell me, good fellow, what are we to do for a supper?”

“Oh, the castellan of Windeck will entertain you,” said the man-at-arms with a grin, and marched up the embrasure; the while the archers, taking counsel among themselves, debated whether or not they should take up their quarters in the gloomy and deserted edifice.

“We shall get nothing but an owl for supper there,” said young Otto.  “Marry, lads, let us storm the town; we are thirty gallant fellows, and I have heard the garrison is not more than three hundred.”  But the rest of the party thought such a way of getting supper was not a very cheap one, and, grovelling knaves, preferred rather to sleep ignobly and without victuals, than dare the assault with Otto, and die, or conquer something comfortable.

One and all then made their way towards the castle.  They entered its vast and silent halls, frightening the owls and bats that fled before them with hideous hootings and flappings of wings, and passing by a multiplicity of mouldy stairs, dank reeking roofs, and rickety corridors, at last came to an apartment which, dismal and dismantled as it was, appeared to be in rather better condition than the neighboring chambers, and they therefore selected it as their place of rest for the night.  They then tossed up which should mount guard.  The first two hours of watch fell to Otto, who was to be succeeded by his young though humble friend Wolfgang; and, accordingly, the Childe of Godesberg, drawing his dirk, began to pace upon his weary round; while his comrades, by various gradations of snoring, told how profoundly they slept, spite of their lack of supper.