The next morning Max sent one of our Irishmen to Castleman's house with
a verbal message to Fraeulein Castleman. When the messenger returned, he
replied to my question:--
"I was shown into a little room where three ladies sat. 'What have you
to say?' asked the little black-haired one in the corner--she with the
great eyes and the face pale as a chalk-cliff. I said, 'I am instructed,
mesdames, to deliver this simple message: Sir Max is quite well.' 'That
will do. Thank you.' said the big eyes and the pale face. Then she gave
me two gold florins. The money almost took my breath, and when I looked
up to thank her, blest if the white face wasn't rosy as a June dawn.
When I left, she was dancing about the room singing and laughing, and
kissing everybody but me--worse luck! By Saint Patrick, I never saw so
simple a message create so great a commotion. 'Sir Max is quite well.'
I'm blest if he doesn't look it. Was he ever ill?"
After five or six days we allowed ourselves to fall into a state of
unwatchfulness. One warm evening we dismissed our squires for an hour's
recreation. The Cologne River flows by the north side of the inn garden,
and, the spot being secluded, Max and I, after dark, cooled ourselves by
a plunge in the water. We had come from the water and finished dressing,
save for our doublets, which lay upon the sod, when two men approached
whom we thought to be our squires. When first we saw them, they were in
the deep shadow of the trees that grew near the water's edge, and we did
not notice their halberds until they were upon us.
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