spoke he stooped and pressed something cold and hard against the
neck of the other. "Dost thou know the feel of this? It is a
broad dagger, and if thou dost contrive to loose that gag from
thy mouth and makest any outcry, it shall be sheathed in thy
weasand."

So saying, he thrust the knife back again into its sheath, then
stooping and picking up the other, he flung him across his
shoulder like a sack, and running down the steps as lightly as
though his load was nothing at all, he carried his burden to the
arched doorway whence he had come a little while before. There,
having first stripped his prisoner of all his weapons, Hans sat
the man up in the angle of the wall. "So, brother;" said he,
"now we can talk with more ease than we could up yonder. I will
tell thee frankly why I am here; it is to find where the young
Baron Otto of Drachenhausen is kept. If thou canst tell me, well
and good; if not, I must e'en cut thy weasand and find me one
who knoweth more. Now, canst thou tell me what I would learn,
brother?"

The other nodded dimly in the darkness.

"That is good," said Hans, "then I will loose thy gag until thou
hast told me; only bear in mind what I said concerning my
dagger."

Thereupon, he unbound his prisoner, and the fellow slowly rose
to his feet. He shook himself and looked all about him in a
heavy, bewildered fashion, as though he had just awakened from a
dream.