This done, and Jean having been arranged as comfortably as might be, Barbe obeyed some peremptory summonses from without, and presently came back.
‘The seigneur desires to speak with the ladies,’ she said; ‘but I have told him that they cannot leave la pauvrette, and are too much spent to speak with him to-night. I will bring them supper and they shall rest.’
‘We thank you,’ said Madame de Ste. Petronelle, ‘Only, de grace, tell us where we are, and who this seigneur is, and what he wants with us poor women.’
‘This is the Castle of Balchenburg,’ was the reply; ‘the seigneur is the Baron thereof. For the next’--she shrugged her shoulders--‘it must be one of Baron Rudiger’s ventures. But I must go and fetch the ladies some supper. Ah! the demoiselle surely needs it.’
‘Ah yes,’ she replied; ‘Trudchen shall bring some.’
The little girl presently reappeared with a pitcher as heavy as she could carry. She could not understand French, but looked much interested, and very eager and curious as she brought in several of the bundles and mails of the travellers.
‘Thank the saints,’ cried the lady, ‘they do not mean to strip us of our clothes!’
‘They have stolen us, and that is enough for them,’ said Eleanor.
Jean lay apparently too much exhausted to take notice of what was going on, and they hoped she might sleep, while they moved about quietly. The room seemed to be a cell in the hollow of the turret, and there were two loophole windows, to which Eleanor climbed up, but she could see nothing but the stars. ‘Ah! yonder is the Plough, just as when we looked out at it at Dunbar o’er the sea!’ she sighed. ‘The only friendly thing I can see! Ah! but the same God and the saints are with us still!’ and she clasped her rosary’s cross as she returned to her sister, who was sighing out an entreaty for water.