Tekla: A Romance of Love and War

The Romans had long since departed, but their handiwork remained--a thin line laid like a whiplash across the broad country--a road. It extended northwestward from Frankfort and...

The Emperor, having removed the stains of travel, followed his host downstairs to the banquet that had been prepared for him, and both fell to with an appetite sharpened by a lo...

They entered a lower room, long and narrow, meagrely furnished, containing a rough table thrust against the wall next the river, with two benches, on one of which the Emperor se...

For three days the Emperor and Siegfried wandered about Treves and saw much to interest and instruct them. Among other things they noted that the city was more efficiently garri...

On the night after his adventure in the boat with the Baron, the Emperor retired early, bolted his door, threw open the window, flung down the rope, and so descended to the plai...

The Countess Tekla having dismissed her waiting-maid, sat long in her boudoir over-looking the Moselle, and thought deeply upon the question that the girl had brought uppermost,...

An instant later the boat was pushed out with its three passengers, moving swiftly and silently down the stream, propelled by the lusty but noiseless strokes of Conrad's paddle....

Bruttig consisted of a row of houses facing the river, some few hundred feet back from it. In the centre of the row, near the landing, which was rudely paved with round stones,...

"I hold it well," he said to Rodolph, "to get as speedily away from Bruttig as may be. The lieutenant of Count Beilstein has gone in haste to the castle to tell his Highness wha...

In spite of his anxiety, Rodolph slept that night with a soundness that carried him, unconscious, further into the morning than he had intended when he lay down. It had been his...

When Count Bertrich flung himself from his horse in front of the Archbishop's summer palace at Zurlauben, and strode hastily up the steps that led to the entrance, he passed thr...

Rodolph's first thought ran toward the safety of the Countess. He resolved at once to send her down the hill they had so recently climbed, and, under escort of Conrad, ask her t...

The Emperor, when his dripping charger climbed the incline before Alken, looked with concern toward the troop of horse drawn up facing the river, wondering whether or no Heinric...

After Count Bertrich's unceremonious departure, Heinrich stood by the table with black brows, in the attitude of one who listened intently. No one in the room moved or spoke, an...

The sun, shining through one of the narrow slits in the circular wall, striking on Rodolph's face, woke him next morning, and when he sat on his straw pallet he saw that the doo...

Once more Tekla and Rodolph found themselves on the battlements. The flag hung listless at the top of the pole in the still air, as if the time for action had not yet arrived. O...

The sun rose and set, and rose and set again, before news came to Castle Thuron. There was no sign of an enemy; the Moselle valley, as seen from the round towers, seemed a very...

The archer on guard in the Rittersaal stood with his back to the doorway, bow ready to hand, his mouth pursed as if he were silently whistling, his eyes upraised to the ceiling,...

Heinrich and Rodolph left the grand hall with the archer following at their heels, and ascended to the battlements. The sun had set, and long parallel belts of crimson clouds ba...

The Emperor was awakened by the ringing martial sound of bugles, calling the various camps from slumber. The sun had not yet risen when he reached the platform that formed the r...

"Heinrich of Thuron, sometime Count Palatine, now deposed by lawful authority duly proclaimed, you are summoned to surrender the Castle of Thuron at present held by you, to the...

It is doubtful if a nation or a military commander is strengthened by securing an ally, even though that ally be powerful. One determined man will wage war with more success tha...

The great white tent erected on the heights of Bieldenburg was in reality much larger than it appeared from the battlement of Thuron. It is doubtful if any who then beheld it, l...

"No. He has represented you, and should account to you. As I have your permission to note his replies, I shall put question when I have heard what he has to say, if further exam...

The swarthy Heinrich, summoned once again by bugle blast to the gate top of the castle, seeing there a man with white flag, heard with amazement that the high and honourable Arc...

Heinrich thought that after a defeat so overwhelming the Archbishops would strike tent and hie themselves back to their respective cities, there to resume the religious duties w...

What the Emperor feared the Archbishops would do, and what would have been the proper thing to do from a military standpoint, was what the warlike prelates did not do. Both were...

The first problem which the Archbishops set themselves to solve was the estimating of the exact number of men required to surround the castle effectually, and keep watch night a...

Hilda had been given lodging in a house at the back of the village, and from her window she could see the castle which had so inhospitably sent her from its gates. But the girl...

"Answer, upper dog," cried Roger Kent, peering at them, "or take your fingers from the under dog's throat and let him answer, otherwise I will run my knife into you on the chanc...

As the days went by and the seasons changed, dull monotony settled down upon the besieged castle, and all within felt more or less its depressing effects. The Black Count chafed...

The Countess Tekla spent the greater portion of her time waiting upon her aunt, who, never having known a true friend in her life before, clung to the girl with a pathetic insis...

Not on the battlements alone did lovers meet. At nearly the same hour of the night after the ill-kept guard on the promenade, Conrad set forth to greet Hilda, as had been his cu...

During the two years that the siege lasted, the Archbishops did not remain in their camp on the heights as pertinaciously as their soldiers had to cling to the line around the c...

When the Black Count had shouted his defiance to the tent of the Archbishop, he stood there in the calm moonlight with his clenched fist raised high above his head, while a deep...

The bowman, with characteristic caution, stole down the hill until he neared the line, wound so tightly round the castle. Here his circumspection redoubled, and, trailing his bo...

Of all those gathered in the large tent, the Archbishop of Treves was the first to realise that the bundle which had so unexpectedly dropped down upon them, as it were, from the...

John Surrey, the archer, stumbled wearily down the crumbling shale of the steep hill, guided by the low signal cry that sounded at intervals from the edge of the Moselle. He fou...

Tired as John Surrey was when Rodolph left him with Conrad, the archer ordered a meal to be served to them, for he was ever ready to eat heartily. From the table the two travell...

It would perhaps be wrong to censure the two Archbishops for military neglect in failing to take note of anything that was happening except in the very limited space which was e...

Large as was the tent of the Archbishops, it could not compare in size or splendour with the imperial pavilion. This canopy was not square like the shelter of their august Lords...

The Countess Tekla leaned long over the parapet of Castle Thuron, gazing sadly into the night. The brilliant moonlight seemed a mockery of former happiness, now that she stood b...

One morning word came hurriedly to the Count that there was a commotion near Alken, an attack being feared. Heinrich ascended to the battlements without haste and without enthus...