The Dove in the Eagle's Nest by Charlotte M. Yonge (best book club books TXT) 📕

full knightly armour, exactly alike, from the gilt-spurred heel to the eagle- crested helm, and often moving restlessly forward to watch for the enemy, though taking care not to be betrayed by the glitter of their mail. So long did they wait that there was even a doubt whether it might not have been a false alarm; the boy was vituperated, and it was proposed to despatch a spy to see whether anything were doing at Schlangenwald.

At length a rustling and rushing were heard; then a clank of armour. Ebbo vaulted into the saddle, and gave the word to mount; Schleiermacher, who always fought on foot, stepped up to him. "Keep back your men, Herr Freiherr. Let his design be manifest. We must not be said to have fallen on him on his way to the muster."

"It would be but as he served my father!" muttered Ebbo, forced, however, to restrain himself, though with boiling blood, as the tramp of horses shook the ground, and bright armour became visible on the further side of the stream.

For the first time, the brothers beheld the foe of their line. He was seated on a clumsy black horse, and sheathed in full armour, and was apparently a large heavy man, whose powerful proportions were becoming unwieldy as he advanced in life. The dragon on his crest and shield would have made him known to the twins, even without the deadly curse that passed the Schneiderlein's lips at the sight. As the armed troop, out-numbering the Adlersteiners by about a dozen, and followed by a rabble with straw and pine brands, came forth on the meadow, the count halted and appeared to be giving orders.

"The ruffian! He is calling them on! Now--" began Ebbo.

"Nay, there is no sign yet that he is not peacefully on his journey to the camp," responded Moritz; and, chafing with impatient fury, the knight waited while Schlangenwald rode towards the old channel of the Braunwasser, and there, drawing his rein, and sitting like a statue in his stirrups, he could hear him shout: "The lazy dogs are not astir yet. We will give them a reveille. Forward with your brands!"

"Now!" and Ebbo's cream-coloured horse leapt forth, as the whole band flashed into the sunshine from the greenwood covert.

"Who troubles the workmen on my land?" shouted Ebbo.

"Who you may be I care not," replied the count, "but when I find strangers unlicensed on my lands, I burn down their huts. On, fellows!"

"Back, fellows!" called Ebbo. "Whoso touches a stick on Adlerstein ground shall suffer."

"So!" said the count, "this is the burgher-bred, burgher-fed varlet, that calls himself of Adlerstein! Boy, thou had best be warned. Wert thou true-blooded, it were worth my while to maintain my rights against thee. Craven as thou art, not even with spirit to accept my feud, I would fain not have the trouble of sweeping thee from my path."

"Herr Graf, as true Freiherr and belted knight, I defy thee! I proclaim my right to this ground, and whoso damages those I place there must do battle with me."

"Thou wilt have it then," said the count, taking his heavy lance from his squire, closing his visor, and wheeling back his horse, so as to give space for his career.

Ebbo did the like, while Friedel on one side, and Hierom von Schlangenwald on the other, kept their men in array, awaiting the issue of the strife between their leaders--the fire of seventeen against the force of fifty-six.

They closed in full shock, with shivered lances and rearing, pawing horses, but without damage to either. Each drew his sword, and they were pressing together, when Heinz, seeing a Schlangenwalder aiming with his cross-bow, rode at him furiously, and the melee became general; shots were fired, not only from cross-bows, but from arquebuses, and in the throng Friedel lost sight of the main combat between his brother and the count.

Suddenly however there was a crash, as of falling men and horses, with a shout of victory strangely mingled with a cry of agony, and both sides became aware that their leaders had fallen. Each party rushed to its fallen head. Friedel beheld Ebbo under his struggling horse, and an enemy dashing at his throat, and, flying to the rescue, he rode down the assailant, striking him with his sword; and, with the instinct of driving the foe as far as possible from his brother, he struck with a sort of frenzy, shouting fiercely to his men, and leaping over the dry bed of the river, rushing onward with an intoxication of ardour that would have seemed foreign to his gentle nature, but for the impetuous desire to protect his brother. Their leaders down, the enemy had no one to rally them, and, in spite of their superiority in number, gave way in confusion before the furious onset of Adlerstein. So soon, however, as Friedel perceived that he had forced the enemy far back from the scene of conflict, his anxiety for his brother returned, and, leaving the retainers to continue the pursuit, he turned his horse. There, on the green meadow, lay on the one hand Ebbo's cream-coloured charger, with his master under him, on the other the large figure of the count; and several other prostrate forms likewise struggled on the sand and pebbles of the strand, or on the turf.

"Ay," said the architect, who had turned with Friedel, "'twas a gallant feat, Sir Friedel, and I trust there is no great harm done. Were it the mere dint of the count's sword, your brother will be little the worse."

"Ebbo! Ebbo mine, look up!" cried Friedel, leaping from his horse, and unclasping his brother's helmet.

"Friedel!" groaned a half-suffocated voice. "O take away the horse."

One or two of the artisans were at hand, and with their help the dying steed was disengaged from the rider, who could not restrain his moans, though Friedel held him in his arms, and endeavoured to move him as gently as possible. It was then seen that the deep gash from the count's sword in the chest was not the most serious injury, but that an arquebus ball had pierced his thigh, before burying itself in the body of his horse; and that the limb had been further crushed and wrenched by the animal's struggles. He was nearly unconscious, and gasped with anguish, but, after Moritz had bathed his face and moistened his lips, as he lay in his brother's arms, he looked up with clearer eyes, and said: "Have I slain him? It was the shot, not he, that sent me down. Lives he? See--thou, Friedel--thou. Make him yield."

Transferring Ebbo to the arms of Schleiermacher, Friedel obeyed, and stepped towards the fallen foe. The wrongs of Adlerstein were indeed avenged, for the blood was welling fast from a deep thrust above the collar-bone, and the failing, feeble hand was wandering uncertainly among the clasps of the gorget.

"Let me aid," said Friedel, kneeling down, and in his pity for the dying man omitting the summons to yield, he threw back the helmet, and beheld a grizzled head and stern hard features, so embrowned by weather and inflamed by intemperance, that even approaching death failed to blanch them. A scowl of malignant hate was in the eyes, and there was a thrill of angry wonder as they fell on the lad's face. "Thou again,--thou whelp! I thought at least I had made an end of thee," he muttered, unheard by Friedel, who, intent on the thought that had recurred to him with greater vividness than ever, was again filling Ebbo's helmet with water. He refreshed the dying man's face with it, held it to his lips, and said: "Herr Graf, variance and strife are ended now. For heaven's sake, say where I may find my father!"

"So! Wouldst find him?" replied Schlangenwald, fixing his look on the eager countenance of the youth, while his hand, with a dying man's nervous agitation, was fumbling at his belt.

"I would bless you for ever, could I but free him."

"Know then," said the count, speaking very slowly, and still holding the young knight's gaze with a sort of intent fascination, by the stony glare of his light gray eyes, "know that thy villain father is a Turkish slave, unless he be--as I hope--where his mongrel son may find him."

Therewith came a flash, a report; Friedel leaped back, staggered, fell; Ebbo started to a sitting posture, with horrified eyes, and a loud shriek, calling on his brother; Moritz sprang to his feet, shouting, "Shame! treason!"

"I call you to witness that I had not yielded," said the count. "There's an end of the brood!" and with a grim smile, he straightened his limbs, and closed his eyes as a dead man, ere the indignant artisans fell on him in savage vengeance.

All this had passed like a flash of lightning, and Friedel had almost at the instant of his fall flung himself towards his brother, and raising himself on one hand, with the other clasped Ebbo's, saying, "Fear not; it is nothing," and he was bending to take Ebbo's head again on his knee, when a gush of dark blood, from his left side, caused Moritz to exclaim, "Ah! Sir Friedel, the traitor did his work! That is no slight hurt."

"Where? How? The ruffian!" cried Ebbo, supporting himself on his elbow, so as to see his brother, who rather dreamily put his hand to his side, and, looking at the fresh blood that immediately dyed it, said, "I do not feel it. This is more numb dulness than pain."

"A bad sign that," said Moritz, apart to one of the workmen, with whom he held counsel how to carry back to the castle the two young knights, who remained on the bank, Ebbo partly extended on the ground, partly supported on the knee and arm of Friedel, who sat with his head drooping over him, their looks fixed on one another, as if conscious of nothing else on earth.

"Herr Freiherr," said Moritz, presently, "have you breath to wind your bugle to call the men back from the pursuit?"

Ebbo essayed, but was too faint, and Friedel, rousing himself from the stupor, took the horn from him, and made the mountain echoes ring again, but at the expense of a great effusion of blood.

By this time, however, Heinz was riding back, and a moment his exultation changed to rage and despair, when he saw the condition of his young lords. Master Schleiermacher proposed to lay them on some of the planks prepared for the building, and carry them up the new road.

"Methinks," said Friedel, "that I could ride if I were lifted on horseback, and thus would our mother be less shocked."

"Well thought," said Ebbo. "Go on and cheer her. Show her thou canst keep the saddle, however it may be with me," he added, with a groan of anguish.

Friedel made the sign of the cross over him. "The holy cross keep us and her, Ebbo," he said, as he bent to assist in laying his brother on the boards, where a mantle had been spread; then kissed his brow, saying, "We shall be together again soon."

Ebbo was lifted on the shoulders of his bearers, and Friedel strove to rise, with the aid of Heinz, but sank back,