'The Club allows no jesting with the White Rose, Sir Stranger.'
Margarita made peace. 'I thank you all, good friends. But quarrel not,
I pray you, with them that save me at the risk of their lives.'
'Our service is equal,' said the Goshawk, flourishing, 'Only we happen to
be beforehand with the Club, for which Farina and myself heartily beg
pardon of the entire brotherhood.'
'Farina!' exclaimed Dietrich. 'Then we make a prisoner instead of
uncaging a captive.'
'What 's this?' said Guy.
'So much,' responded Dietrich. 'Yonder's a runaway from two masters: the
law of Cologne, and the conqueror of Satan; and all good citizens are
empowered to bring him back, dead or alive.'
'Dietrich! Dietrich! dare you talk thus of the man who saved me?' cried
Margarita.
Dietrich sullenly persisted.
'Then, look!' said the White Rose, reddening under the pale dawn; 'he
shall not, he shall not go with you.'
One of the Club was here on the point of speaking to the White Rose,--
a breach of the captain's privilege. Dietrich felled him unresisting
to earth, and resumed:
'It must be done, Beauty of Cologne! the monk, Father Gregory, is now
enduring shame and scorn for lack of this truant witness.'
'Enough! I go !' said Farina.
'You leave me?' Margarita looked tender reproach. Weariness and fierce
excitement had given a liquid flame to her eyes and an endearing darkness
round their circles that matched strangely with her plump youth.
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