The young baron was evidently bent on proving that no one
could make his mother so happy as he could; and he was not far wrong
there.
Friedel, however, could not rest till he had followed Heinz to the
stable, and speaking over the back of the old white mare, the only
other survivor of the massacre, had asked him once more for the
particulars, a tale he was never loth to tell; but when Friedel
further demanded whether he was certain of having seen the death of
his younger lord, he replied, as if hurt: "What, think you I would
have quitted him while life was yet in him?"
"No, certainly, good Heinz; yet I would fain know by what tokens thou
knewest his death."
"Ah! Sir Friedel; when you have seen a stricken field or two, you
will not ask how I know death from life."
"Is a swoon so utterly unlike death?"
"I say not but that an inexperienced youth might be mistaken," said
Heinz; "but for one who had learned the bloody trade, it were
impossible. Why ask, sir?"
"Because," said Friedel, low and mysteriously--"my brother would not
have my mother know it, but--Count Schlangenwald demanded whether we
could prove my father's death.
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