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"Ha ha! wretches! how were it with ye an I was free from these bonds ?"

! Helgunda started, in affright, from the couch on which she reclined, as she heard these wild words, and crouched timidly behind her lover, as for protection. The prince, however, bade her fear naught,-laughed at her terrors, and thus replied to Walter in a sneering sort:

"Nay, nay, an ye were, we should even do as we might. But first be free, and then we'll talk on't."

Turning to his mistress, he once more caressed her; and they gave themselves up once more to the tumult of guilty delight. "Ha! ha! wretches!" again outspake Walter, in a fiercer tone; "how were it with ye, an I stood beside ye at this moment with a sheathless glaive in my hand?"

Again Helgunda started from the couch, and hid herself from the glare of her husband's eye, while she thus addressed her lover: :

"Pardon me, my prince, but my heart misgives me I may not think of aught but danger. This morning I missed his sword from the place where it hung since his captivity;-let us leave him here alone."

*

Nay! never talk of danger to me!" answered the prince, angrily. "I tell thee, an he had twenty swords, and every one of them twenty times the edge and power of Balmung, the sword of Siegfried, they would avail him naught. How could he cut the heavy iron collar which fastens him to yonder wall?. how might he sever the gyves and manacles which fetter him to that massive masonry? Let us, then, be merrymock his impotent rage, and laugh at his idle threats.”

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So saying, he wound his arms round the graceful form of the faithless wife, and again they renewed their endearments. At the moment, however, when their pleasure was at its height,— when they had eyes and ears for nothing, and were all in all to each other, Walter slipped off his chains, disencumbered himself of his fetters, and stole softly to the side of the couch whereon they were laid. His bright blade glistened in the air; death was in his grisly aspect; his eye shot forth the fire of rage and revenge.

* Siegfried, the Dragon-Killer.

"Heaven!" shrieked Helgunda, who was the first to catch a glimpse of him; "Help! help!"

"Die, traitors! die!" was all the injured husband spoke, as he whirled his blade on high.

The trenchant weapon flashed aloft; it paused over the guilty pair a single moment; in the next it fell with a dead dull crash, and they were severed in twain. It cut shear through back-bone and bowels of both; they never spoke nor stirred after.

Thus was the injured Walter avenged on his faithless wife. Such ever be the fate of wedded treachery.

THE OEHLBERG.

The Oehlberg, which succeeds on the panoramic view that accompanies these pages, is invested, equally as its predecessors, with the mystic halo of legendary lore. The following tender tale is told of the dwellers in the castle which once stood on its summit. It is better known to the general reader than the greater part of those which have been already related; but still it will be found not less interesting, nor less capable of exciting renewed sympathy.

GOD'S LOVE.*

In the middle of the twelfth century, when the papal rule was supreme in Europe, and the haughtiest princes bowed their heads to the proud lords of the church, an old baron, Balther von Bassenich, dwelt in the noble castle which then stood on the highest point of the Oehlberg. He had no child but one, a daughter, named Liba, who was "passing" fair, as well as gentle and very virtuous. Her beauty and her goodness, conjoined with her father's possessions, attracted to her feet many suitors from far and near; but the favoured of the throng was a young knight of the neighbourhood, named Schott von Grunstein.

*Whom the god's love die young,' was said of yore,
And many deaths do they escape by this;

The death of friends, and that which slays even more—
The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is,
Except mere breath; and since the silent shore
Awaits, at last, even those who longest miss
The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave

Which men weep over, may be meant to save."-Don Juan, c. iv.

They "loved and were beloved;" and the aged sire of the maiden had given his assent to their union.

"And they were happy; for to their young eyes

Each was an angel, and earth paradise."

The days which were to intervene between their bridal were to them like a long, long dream of delight. Alas! they could not foresee the storm which was about to burst upon them, and bury their fond hopes in darkness and desolation. How should they? There was not a dark spot in their bright, serene, beautiful heaven. Perhaps it was all the better for being so.

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The aged father of Liba had long entertained a deep and implacable hatred against Engelbert the holy, the pious, but severe prince-bishop and elector of Cologne, to whom he stood in the relation of feudatory, or, more properly speaking, of knight-vassal. The quarrel arose from a very trifling circumstance at first; but it soon increased, as such quarrels generally do, to a pitch altogether unwarranted on either side. Unfortunately, it only strengthened with years, and the growing infirmity of the parties, instead of decreasing in virulence and intensity.

"Alas! they had been friends in youth,

But whispering tongues will poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above,
And youth is stormy, and life is vain,
And to be wrath with one we love,

Doth act like madness on the brain."*

So it was with the prince-bishop and his noble vassal. They had been fast friends in youth; they were now bitter foes in their old age. Neither sought to conceal his enmity from the other, or from the world. The results were fatal to both.

One day, as Balther sat at table in the great hall of his castle, surrounded by a crowd of guests,-knights and barons of the neighbourhood, the conversation turned upon some recent act of the bishop, their sovereign, which these free-livers, or, in strict truth-speaking, these free-booters, complained of as arbitrary and oppressive. The punishment of one of their "order," for setting on and plundering a caravan or company of merchants

* Coleridge's "Christabel."

travelling through the territory of Cologne towards the Rhine, on their way to the far-famed October fair at Frankfort, was that which they discussed, and at which they were all very wroth to a man. Every one at table was excited at it, for each was likely to be placed in a similar predicament, and to merit, perhaps, similar treatment, at the hands of the rigid prelate. As the feast proceeded, and the wine-cup circulated more freely among them, their complaints waxed louder, and their expressions of anger and discontent became bitterer and bolder. Threats were uttered against their feudal sovereign; and "curses deep and loud" were muttered by mouths that dared not to have spoken them in a state of sobriety. Balther saw the turmoil with delight; and he sought to exalt their anger still more by his own observations.

"Alas!" said he; "it is ill for me that the days of my youth are gone! Wo is the man who may not do his own battle! Would that I could but wield a sword as I was wont to wield it in days of yore! I should not long tolerate this clerical insolence! He treats us as if we were not his equals ! Is there one among us whose birth is less noble than his ?"

His auditors cheered this inflammatory and self-flattering speech. The applause was boisterous, loud, and long-continued. It is usually so on such occasions, and under such circumstances.

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"But never mind," he continued, "we must only live on, like so many whipped hounds, to lick the hand that smites us.' "Never! never!" shouted the excited assembly, as with a single voice.

"Never?" echoed their host, incredulously; "Alas! alas! we speak only-we do nothing more.'

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"What shall we do?" up and spake a fierce, black-browed, thick-bearded baron, who dwelt on the shores of the Rhine. The salutary severity of the bishop was particularly obnoxious to him, for it had more than once prevented his plundering all passengers on the river.

"What shall we do?" echoed the maddened revellers.
"Pledge me in a beaker," quoth Balther dryly.

They rose as one man. Their deep cups foamed over the brim with the generous juice of the Rhenish grape. Deadly hatred was imprinted on every countenance. Each right hand

was held aloft, each left hand grasped its sword-hilt with a short convulsive motion. Balther stood at the head of the table, towering over all.

"Here's to the speedy downfal of our enemies!" spake he. "If you have the hearts of men in your bodies, you'll understand my meaning. Death to our arch foe!"

"Death to our arch foe!" shouted the drinkers; and they drained off their beakers to the dregs.

In that hour the fate of the archbishop was decided.

A conspiracy was then and there formed, plans were laid, and every precaution taken to ensure the destruction of the obnoxious prelate. Within a brief space they had accomplished their diabolical object, in what manner it boots not the present purpose to relate; and the more especially so, as it has been already partially related in these pages.*

The horror excited in Germany by this foul deed was fully equal to that excited by the murder of Thomas à Becket, about the same period, in England. The whole nation were up in arms against the perpetrators. The common people, with whom the bishop, in his clerical character, was a great favourite, demanded justice with loud outcries and wild threats; the free cities of the empire denounced the assassins, because of the enormity of the act, and the protection which that prelate had always afforded to traffic in his territories; and the electors of the Germanic body insisted on the persecution to the death of all connected with the murder, as an example to the robber-knights, and as a safeguard against any similar attempts on their own persons. The emperor could not withstand the united voice of the empire, the solicitations of his friends, and the prayers of his best supporters, even if he had entertained an intention to do so. But he never did; and he acted accordingly. Without a moment's delay he issued the strictest orders to seize and execute all the conspirators; to level their castles with the earth; and to dispossess their heirs and descendants for ever. The terrible punishment of fire and sword to the outrance was pronounced on all concerned, mediately or immediately, in the murder of the prince-bishop: such was the fearful sentence that went forth against them.

* Vide "Westhofen-The River Fight," p. 107, &c.

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