“Put up your dice,” exclaimed Veit, harshly. “A pest upon it! Do you not know I have come straight from Baden, and that, too, on matters of importance, and here you two fools are courting the wench Fortune? I am bringing great news.”
The two laid aside the dice. Veit sat down on the bench and replied to their questioning glances: “The day after to-morrow we must join the army.” The news did not seem to surprise either of them. Jörgel, indeed, said with a yawn, “It’s an infernally doubtful pleasure, this going to Zurich!”
“There is nothing in it for us,” said Conrad.
“Blockheads!” said Veit, with a twinkle in his eye. Then he resumed in a lower tone: “The siege is only a sham manœuvre, if you must know. Bonstetter’s plan is simply to keep the Zurichers busy and to decoy the Waldstätters, who have been running all over Kiburg and Thurgau, back into the city.”
Jörgel and Conrad looked at each other. “And the Duke?” they asked, in one voice.
“Wait! Here is the real business,” said Veit. “With the large part of the army and the flower of the nobles, among whom we shall be, the Duke will secretly and quietly march past Wellingen and Bremgarten to Sempach, on the left bank of the Reuss, and afterwards advance upon Lucerne, to give the burghers a needed chastising, and set the League a terrible example. He will deal lightly with the peasant rabble, but Zurich will have to make the best bargain it can.”
“A masterpiece of generalship,” said Conrad.
“Pst!” warned Veit, for the old woman was returning. She was about to provide them with wine, but Veit beckoned to her and said: “We have no wish for a carousal this time, Mother Ruschen. I will quench my thirst with a good drink from my own cellar, and don’t care to spoil the taste of it now.” Turning to his companions, he added: “You shall be my guests to-night. We must leave for home to-morrow at an early hour. We will make preparations for a little ride; it is bad luck that I cannot ride the black horse. The beast went suddenly lame, and that is why I wait here so long. It must have been bewitched.”
“Yes, yes!” said Jörgel, “I have no doubt witchery is back of it. I wonder who could have done it!”
“What is bewitched once is likely to be bewitched again,” said Conrad.