The Strange Tale of the Snake Ring by John Holroyd Page B

here?”
    â€œBecause,” answered Riese, “we can see that you are a person of some importance. You wear the king’s badge. So we are going to keep you here until the king pays us to set you free. You will be given food and a place to sleep, and we shall treat you well, but of course we cannot let you go until we have sent a message to the king, and he has paid the ransom that we ask.”
    That was the beginning of a long, weary time for Thomas. Every day the robbers set out for the forest to watch out for travellers. Riese never forgot to block the mouth of the cave with the wooden grille, and lock it in place. Some days they returned in the evening laughing and shouting, with food and bottles of wine. But many nights they returned sadly with sour faces, when no travellers had passed through the forest.
    Sometimes the robbers boasted about all the rich people they had robbed, and from listening to what they said, Thomas discovered that they had robbed the king’s messenger and left him in the forest. This news made Thomas very worried, as he realised that his letter could never have been delivered to Gerda.
    But another piece of news was more cheering. One day Zwerg announced that he had found a peasant who would take a message to the king, in return for five gold pieces. Luckily the robbers had not spent all the gold pieces in Thomas’s purse, so they were able to send the peasant on his way. To prove to the king that Thomas really was a prisoner, they made the man take with him Thomas’s badge, the badge of the Prince of the Shining Kingdom.
    The robbers also gave the peasant a donkey on which to ride to the king’s palace. Thomas heard them talking outside the cave.
    â€œHere are your five pieces of gold,” Zwerg was saying. “The king will give you at least five more when you give him the message. Don’t forget, now: he must send five thousand gold pieces to us before we will set this prisoner free. And get there as quickly as you can. The autumn is coming on, and we need an answer before the winter.”
    â€œAnd don’t try to run off with the money,” added Riese, “because we shall find you wherever you hide, and I shall cut you into bite-sized pieces and feed you to the dogs.”
    The robbers did not really have any dogs, but what Riese said was quite enough to frighten the simple countryman, who mounted the donkey and set off down the track which led to the forest.
    Riese and Zwerg did not realise what a great distance it was to the Shining Kingdom. When two or three weeks had gone by, they expected a message from the king, with five thousand gold pieces. Every day one of them rode on Thomas’s horse through the forest and some way along the track to the north, to see if anyone was approaching.
    As they thought that very soon they would be rich, they did not go out into the forest and lie in wait for travellers. The weeks went by, the trees lost their leaves and the first snows of winter fell. Few travellers now ventured on journeys. For these reasons the robbers spent more and more time in the cave, playing dice and drinking wine. From time to time, when the weather allowed, one of them would ride Thomas’s horse into the town, to sell some stolen item, and bring back food and more bottles of wine. Sometimes they would go out to collect firewood.
    Even when they were in the cave, they spoke very little to Thomas, who suffered from loneliness and boredom. He began to wonder whether he would ever escape, and whether he would ever see his Gerda again.

Chapter 13
    Zwerg finds the Snake Ring

    So the winter passed. Some days the robbers took Thomas out into the forest to help them to collect firewood, but always with a chain around his waist, the other end securely by Riese. Sometimes, if there was a break in the weather, they would go out looking for travellers. But even when the snow melted, and signs of spring began to appear in the forest, no