Ehrenfels?"

"Yes; if you agree to my terms without further haggling."

"I shall agree to your terms if I believe your story."

"It seems impossible, sir, to pin you down to any definite bargain. Is
this the way you conduct your business?"

"Yes; unless I am well assured of the good faith of my customer. I
offered you ordinary business terms when I asked for security, or for
the signature of three responsible merchants to your bond. It is because
I am a merchant, and not a speculator, that I haggle, as you term it."

"Very well, then, I will tell you how I got away, but I begin my recital
rather hopelessly, for you always leave yourself a loophole of escape.
If you believe my story, you say! Yes: could I weave a romance about
tearing my sheets into ropes; of lowering myself in the dark from the
battlements to the ground; of an alarm given; of torches flashing; of
diving into the Rhine, and swimming under the water until I nearly
strangled; of floating down over the rapids, with arrows whizzing round
me in the night; of climbing dripping to the farther shore, far from
sight of Ehrenfels, then, doubtless, you would believe. But my escape
was prosaically commonplace, depending on the cupidity of one man. The
material for it was placed in my hands by the Archbishops themselves.
Your account states that the Castle is well guarded. So it is, but when
the Archbishop needs an augmentation of his force, he withdraws his men
from Ehrenfels to Mayence, as my prison is the nearest of his
possessions to his capital city, and thus at times it happens that the
Castle is bereft of all save the custodian and his family. His eldest