into a smaller apartment which the young man saw was fitted as a
bedroom. The rooms hung high over the Rhine, but the view of the river
was impeded by the numerous heavy iron bars which formed a formidable
lattice-work before the windows. The Count was about to thank his
conductor for providing so sumptuously for him, but, turning, he was
amazed to see Richart outside with breathless eagerness draw shut the
strong door that led to the passage from which he had entered, and a
moment later, Herbert heard the ominous sound of stout bolts being shot
into their sockets. He stood for a moment gazing blankly now at the
bolted door, now at the barred window, and then slowly there came to
him the knowledge which would have enlightened a more suspicious man
long before--that he was a prisoner in the grim fortress of Gudenfels.
Casting his mind backward over the events of the morning, he now saw a
dozen sinister warnings that had heretofore escaped him. If a friendly
invitation had been intended, what need of the numerous guard of armed
men sent to escort him? Why had Richart hesitated when certain
questions were asked him? Count Herbert paced up and down the long
room, reviewing with clouded brow the events of the past few hours,
beginning with the glorious freedom of the open hillside in the early
dawn and ending with these impregnable stone walls that now environed
him. He was a man slow to anger, but resentment once aroused, burned in
his heart with a steady fervour that was unquenchable. He stopped at
last in his aimless pacing, raised his clinched fist toward the
timbered ceiling, and cursed the Countess von Falkenstein. In his
striding to and fro the silence had been broken by the clank of his
sword on the stone floor, and he now smiled grimly as he realised that
they had not dared to deprive him of his formidable weapon; they had
caged the lion from the distant desert without having had the courage
to clip his claws. The Count drew his broadsword and swung it hissing
through the air, measuring its reach with reference to the walls on