The Castle of Ehrenstein. G. P. R. James

we watched him from the stone steps," replied the soldier, "and he lifted the latch and shook the door, but at first it would not open. After a while, however, it was suddenly flung back, and in he went."

      "Did he close it behind him?" asked the Count, and Adelaide gazed anxiously on the man's face, in expectation of his answer.

      "Some one did," replied the soldier, "but I can't tell whether it was he or not."

      Thus saying he took his seat again at the table, and all remained silent for several minutes, waiting with different degrees of anxiety for the result.

      "The boy is mad," murmured Seckendorf, to himself, after two or three more minutes had elapsed; and then he added aloud, "Hundred thousand! we must not leave this lad to be strangled by the ghosts, or devils, or whatever they are, my lord."

      "I will go myself," replied the Count, rising from the table; "let those who will, follow me."

      "Stay, let us get some torches," cried Karl von Mosbach.

      But just at that moment there was a clang which shook the whole castle; and while the party assembled gazed on each other's faces in doubt and consternation, the door of the hall in which they were was thrown quickly open, and Ferdinand entered bearing a banner in his hand. His face was very pale; but his brow was stern and contracted, and advancing direct towards the Count, who had come down from the step on which his table was raised, he laid the banner before him.

      His lord gazed from the banner to his face, and from his face back to the banner, which was torn and soiled, and stained in many places with blood. "How is this?" he exclaimed, at length. "This is not what I sent you for!"

      "This is the banner, my lord," replied Ferdinand; "which was hanging between the two shields at the farther end of the hall, over your chair of state."

      Old Seckendorf bent down over the tattered silk, on which was embroidered a lion with its paw upon a crescent; and as he did so, he murmured, with a shake of the head, "Your brother's banner, Sir, which he carried with him to the East."

      "What have you seen?" demanded the Count, sinking his voice, and fixing his eyes upon the young man's countenance.

      "Not now, my lord," replied Ferdinand, in the same low tone; "another time, when you are alone, and have leisure."

      The Count made no reply, but seated himself at the table, and leaned his head thoughtfully upon his hand for a moment or two, while the rest of the party remained in groups around, some gazing from a distance at the banner, some looking at it more closely, but none speaking in a louder tone than a low whisper. It was not, indeed, that they were kept silent by any ceremonious respect for their lord; for those were days of much homely freedom of demeanour; and that distance and reserve did not exist between a chief and his followers which a higher and more fastidious state of civilization has introduced. But there was a feeling of awe approaching to terror, in the bosoms of all, which oppressed them in their speech. Each asked himself, what could this mysterious event mean? how had the banner come where it was found? what did it all portend? for none, in those days of superstition, doubted that the event which had just taken place was an omen of others yet to come. The pale cheek with which Ferdinand of Altenburg had returned, too, and his grave stern look, as he stood by the table where he had lately been sitting, attracted observation, and led every one to believe that there was more to be told, though they had not heard his reply to their lord's question.

      At length, however, to the surprise of all, the Count suddenly shook off his gloomy and abstracted look, and pushed across the flagon of choice wine, which stood at his right, to his young follower, saying, with a laugh, "Come, drink a cup of wine to me, Ferdinand the ghost-queller. By the Lord! there is not a braver man amongst us than thou art, boy. Would to Heaven! that all here would follow thine example. I, for one, will do so, and think no more of these strange things than if they were but the whisperings of the wind through the trees. Drink, good youth! drink."

      Ferdinand filled a cup and drank to his lord; and the next moment the Count rose again, exclaiming, "Now, to bed, to bed, we must all be up by cock-crow for our preparations. I will sup in the old hall to-morrow, if all the devils on the earth or under it should be its tenants;" and thus saying he left the room, followed quickly by Ferdinand, who did not choose to undergo the questionings of his comrades. The others remained for a few minutes, shaking the wise head and commenting gravely; and then by threes and fours quitted the hall, and retired to rest; but there was much oil burned in the Castle of Ehrenstein that night.