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.