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"Put it into my dress," said the King; "I will
for thy sake, take care that Queen Gisela shall not see the thing."
On the following morning the minstrel left the castle. The King
looked after his messenger distrustfully, and thought in his own mind:
"My forest fox will hardly bring this stranger to my castle;
if they refuse my demand, then they will give me a ground for going against
them, to break their peasant pride, and make an end of their free confederation.
But then they will choose Ingo for their leader, and he appears to me a brave
hero, and there might be a hard fight among logwood and forest mushrooms. No
one knows what would be the end of it; and I have no wish to make my body a
footstool over which another might rise to the throne."
Thus, full of anxious care, he drank his mead, concealing his
thoughts even from the Queen, who with her large eyes looked inquiringly at
him, and sometimes guessed his thoughts.
Day after day passed, and Ingo did not come. But one evening
Sintram, the uncle of Theodulf, knocked at the door. The King received him with
open arms, he spoke long and secretly with him, and Gisela remarked that the
King gave assurance to the nobleman, with a shake of the hand, "Thy advantage
and mine will go together in the forest like two wolves." But as the Hero
Sintram departed, the King looked after him also doubtingly, and called him
an evil-eyed fox.
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