’To hell with him!  I wish he had my job, and I his, of watching the yellow-bird in her new cage, till she’s taken out to-night, and then a jolly bumper to the Baron all round.’

The driver wished him a fortunate journey, strongly recommending him to skirt the abbey westward, and go by the Ahr valley, as there was something stirring that way, and mumbling, ‘Makes five again,’ as he put the wheels in motion.

‘Goshawk!’ said his visible companion; ‘what do you say now?’

‘I say, bless that widow!’

‘Oh! bring me face to face with this accursed Werner quickly, my God !’ gasped the youth.

’Tusk! ’tis not Werner we want—­there’s the Thier speaking.  No, no, Schwartz Thier!  I trust you, no doubt; but the badger smells at a hole, before he goes inside it.  We’re strangers, and are allowed to miss our way.’

Leaving the wain in Farina’s charge, he pushed through a dense growth of shrub and underwood, and came crouching on a precipitous edge of shrouded crag, which commanded a view of the stronghold, extending round it, as if scooped clean by some natural action, about a stone’sthrow distant, and nearly level with the look-out tower.  Sheer from a deep circular basin clothed with wood, and bottomed with grass and bubbling water, rose a naked moss-stained rock, on whose peak the castle firmly perched, like a spying hawk.  The only means of access was by a narrow natural bridge of rock flung from this insulated pinnacle across to the mainland.  One man, well disposed, might have held it against forty.

‘Our way’s the best,’ thought Guy, as he meditated every mode of gaining admission.  ’A hundred men an hour might be lost cutting steps up that steep slate; and once at the top we should only have to be shoved down again.’

While thus engaged, he heard a summons sounded from the castle, and scrambled back to Farina.

‘The Thier leads now,’ said he, ’and who leads is captain.  It seems easier to get out of that than in.  There’s a square tower, and a round.  I guess the maiden to be in the round.  Now, lad, no crying out—­You don’t come in with us; but back you go for the horses, and have them ready and fresh in yon watered meadow under the castle.  The path down winds easy.’

‘Man!’ cried Farina, ‘what do you take me for?—­go you for the horses.’

‘Not for a fool,’ Guy rejoined, tightening his lip; ’but now is your time to prove yourself one.’

‘With you, or without you, I enter that castle!’

’Oh! if you want to be served up hot for the Baron’s supper-mess, by all means.’

‘Thunder!’ growled Schwartz Thier, ‘aren’t ye moving?’

The Goshawk beckoned Farina aside.

‘Act as I tell you, or I’m for Cologne.’

‘Traitor!’ muttered the youth.

’Swearing this, that if we fail, the Baron shall need a leech sooner than a bride.’

‘That stroke must be mine!’