wide world beyond, upon which Otto and brother John had gazed so
often from the wooden belfry of the White Cross on the hill.

"Hast been taught to ride a horse by the priests up yonder on
Michaelsburg?" asked the Baron, when they had reached the level
road.

"Nay," said Otto; "we had no horse to ride, but only to bring in
the harvest or the grapes from the further vineyards to the
vintage."

"Prut," said the Baron, "methought the abbot would have had
enough of the blood of old days in his veins to have taught thee
what is fitting for a knight to know; art not afeared?"

"Nay," said Otto, with a smile, "I am not afeared."

"There at least thou showest thyself a Vuelph," said the grim
Baron. But perhaps Otto's thought of fear and Baron Conrad's
thought of fear were two very different matters.

The afternoon had passed by the time they had reached the end of
their journey. Up the steep, stony path they rode to the
drawbridge and the great gaping gateway of Drachenhausen, where
wall and tower and battlement looked darker and more forbidding
than ever in the gray twilight of the coming night. Little Otto
looked up with great, wondering, awe-struck eyes at this grim
new home of his.

The next moment they clattered over the drawbridge that spanned