creatures, liable to err."

"The plot is of your making, secretly held, all these years, with
unrelenting malignity. The devil himself is not wicked enough to send
an innocent, loyal lad to his doom in his own mother's house, with his
father as his executioner. Oh, uncle, uncle, repent and make reparation
before it is too late."

"Let the Count repent and make reparation. I have now nothing to do
with the matter. As I have said, if the Count is merciful, he is like
to be glad of it later in his life; if he is revengeful, visiting the
sin of the father on the son, innocent, I think you called him, then he
deserves what his own hand deals out to himself. But we have talked too
much already. I ask you to remember your oath, for I have told you this
so that you will not bring ridicule upon me by a womanish appeal to my
own men, who would but laugh at you in any case and think me a dotard
in allowing women overmuch to say in the camp. Get you back to your
women, for we move camp instantly. Even if I were to relent, as you
term it, the time is past, for Wilhelm is either dangling from the
walls of Castle Schonburg or he is pardoned, and all that we could do
would be of little avail. Prepare you then instantly for our journey."

Elsa, with a sigh, went slowly to the women's quarters, her oath, the
most terrible that may be taken on the Rhine, weighing heavily upon
her. Resolving not to break it, yet determined in some way to save
Wilhelm, the girl spent the first part of the journey in revolving
plans of escape, for she found as the cavalcade progressed that her
uncle did not trust entirely to the binding qualities of the oath she
had taken, but had her closely watched as well. As the expedition
progressed farther and farther south in the direction of Mayence,