Red Axe | Page 4

as I watched, secure as God in heaven, from my perch on
the Red Tower.
Then came the captives, some riding horses bare-backed, or held in
place before black-bearded riders--women mostly these last, with faces
white-set and strange of eye, or all beblubbered with weeping. Then
came a man or two also on horseback, old and reverend. After them a
draggled rabble of lads and half-grown girls, bound together with ropes
and kept at a dog's trot by the pricking spears of the men-at-arms
behind, who thought it a jest to sink a spear point-deep in the flesh of a
man's back--"drawing the claret wine" they called it. For these riders of
Duke Casimir were every one jolly companions, and must have their
merry jest.
After the captives had gone past--and sorry I was for them--the
body-guard of Duke Casimir came riding steadily and gallantly, all
gentlemen of the Mark, with their sons and squires, landed men,
towered men, free Junkers, serving the Duke for loyalty and not
servitude, though ever "living by the saddle"--as, indeed, most of the
Ritterdom and gentry of the Mark had done for generations.
Then behind them came Duke Casimir himself. The Eastland blood he
had acquired from his Polish mother showed as he rode gloomily apart,
thoughtful, solitary, behind the squared shoulders of his knights. After
him another squadron of riders in ghastly armor of black-and-white,
with torches in their hand and grinning skulls upon their shields, closed
in the array. The great gate of the Wolfsberg was open now, and,
leaving behind him the hushed and darkened town, the master rode into
his castle. The Wolf was in his lair. But in the streets many a burgher's
wife trembled on her bed, while her goodman peered cautiously over
the leads by the side of a gargoyle, and fancied that already he heard

the clamor of the partisans thundering at his door with the Duke's
invitation to meet him in the Hall of Judgment.
CHAPTER II
THE LITTLE PLAYMATE COMES HOME
But there was to be no Session in the Hall of Judgment that night. The
great court-yard, roofed with the vault of stars and lit by the moon, was
to see all done that remained to be done. The torches were planted in
the iron hold-fasts round about. The plunder of the captured towns and
castles was piled for distribution on the morrow, and no man dared
keep back so much as a Brandenburg broad-piece or a handful of
Bohemian gulden. For the fear of the Duke and the Duke's dog-kennels
was upon every stout fighting-kerl. They minded the fate of Hans Pulitz,
who had kept back a belt of gold, and had gotten himself flung by the
heels with no more than the stolen belt upon him, into the kennels
where the Duke's blood-hounds howled and clambered with their
fore-feet on the black-spattered barriers. And they say that the belt of
gold was all that was ever seen again of the poor rascal. Hans
Pulitz--who had hoped for so many riotous evenings among the Fat
Pigs of Thorn and so many draughts of the slippery wine of the
Rheingan careering down the poor thirsty throat of him. But, alas for
Hans Pulitz! the end of all imagining was no more than five minutes of
snapping, snarling, horrible Pandemonium in the kennels of the
Wolfsberg, and the scored gold chain on the ground was all that
remained to tell his tale. Verily, there were few Achans in Duke
Casimir's camp.
And it is small wonder after this, that scant and sparse were the jests
played on the grim master of the Wolfsberg, or that the bay of a
blood-hound tracking on the downs frightened the most stout-hearted
rider in all that retinue of dare-devils.
Going to the side of the Red Tower, which looked towards the
court-yard, I saw the whole array come in. I watched the prisoners
unceremoniously dismounted and huddled together against the coming

of the Duke. There was but one man among them who stood erect. The
torch-light played on his face, which was sometimes bent down to a
little child in his arms, so that I saw him well. He looked not at all upon
the rude men-at-arms who pushed and bullied about him, but continued
tenderly to hush his charge, as if he had been a nurse in a babe-chamber
under the leads, with silence in all the house below.
It pleased me to see the man, for all my life I had loved children. And
yet at ten years of age I had never so much as touched one--no, nor
spoken even, only looked down on those that hated me and spat on the
very tower wherein I dwelt. But nevertheless I loved them and yearned
to tell them