How much is half of fifteen florins?"
"About seven, I should say."

"A calf and a pig."

"A swine for the Jew, that will suit.  You'll keep him here in the trap."

"I can't, Jorg; by my soul, I can't!  Let me alone!"

"Very well, for aught I care; but the legal gentlemen.  The gallows has
waited for you long enough!"

"I can't; I can't.  I've been an honest man all my life, and the smith
Adam and his dead father have shown me many a kindness."

"Who means the smith any harm?"

"The receiver is as bad as the thief.  If they catch him...."

"He'll be put in the stocks for a week.  That's the worst that can befall
him."

"No, no.  Let me alone,--or I'll tell Adam what you're plotting...."

"Then I'll denounce you first, you gallows' fruit, you rogue, you
poacher.  They've suspected you a long time!  Will you change your mind
now, you blockhead?"

"Yes, yes; but Ulrich is here too, and the boy is as dear to me as my own
child."

"I'll come here later, say that no vehicle can be had, and take him away
with me.  When it's all over, I'll let him go."

"Then  I'll keep him.  He already helps me as much, as if he were a grown
man.  Oh, dear, dear!  The Jew, the gentle man, and the poor women, and
the little girl, Ruth...."

"Big Jews and little Jews, nothing more.  You've told me yourself, how
the Hebrews were persecuted in your dead father's day.  So we'll go
shares.  There's a light in the room still.  You'll detain them.  Count
Frohlinger has been at his hunting-box since last evening....If they
insist on moving forward, guide them to the village."

"And I've been an honest man all my life," whined the poacher, and then
continued, threateningly: "If you harm a hair on Ulrich's head...."

"Fool that you are!  I'll willingly leave the big feeder to you.  Go in
now, then I'll come and fetch the boy.  There's money at stake--fifteen
florins!"  Fifteen minutes after, Jorg entered the but.

The smith and the doctor believed the charcoal-burner, when he told them
that all the vehicles in the village were in use, but he would find one
elsewhere.  They must let the boy go with him, to enquire at the farm-
houses in another village.  Somebody would doubtless be found to risk his
horses.  The lad looked like a young nobleman, and the peasants would
take earnest-money from him.  If he, Jorg, should show them florins, it
would get him into a fine scrape.  The people knew he was as poor as a
beggar.

The smith asked the poacher's opinion, and the latter growled:

"That will, doubtless, be a good plan."

He said no more, and when Adam held out his hand to the boy, and kissed
him on the forehead, and the doctor bade him an affectionate farewell,
Marx called himself a Judas, and would gladly have flung the tempting
florins to the four winds, but it was too late.

The smith and Lopez heard him call anxiously to Jorg: "Take good care of
the boy!"  And when Adam patted him on the shoulder, saying: "You are a
faithful fellow, Marx!"  he could have howled like a mastiff and revealed
all; but it seemed as if he again felt the rope around his neck, so he
kept silence.




CHAPTER X.

The grey dawn was already glimmering, yet neither the expected vehicle
nor Jorg had come.  Old Rahel, usually an early riser, was sleeping as
soundly as if she had to make up the lost slumber of ten nights; but the
smith's anxiety would no longer allow him to remain in the close room.
Ruth followed him into the open air, and when she timidly touched him--
for there had always been something unapproachable to her in the silent
man's gigantic figure--he looked at her from head to foot, with strange,
questioning sympathy, and then asked suddenly, with a haste unusual to
him.

"Has your father told you about Jesus Christ?"

"Often!"  replied Ruth.

"And do you love Him?"

"Dearly.  Father says He loved all children, and called them to Him."

"Of course, of course!"  replied the smith, blushing with shame for his
own distrust.

The doctor did not follow the others, and as soon as his wife saw that
they were alone, she beckoned to him.

Lopez sat down on the couch beside her, and took her hand.  The slender
fingers trembled in his clasp, and when, with loving anxiety, he drew her
towards him, he felt the tremor of her delicate limbs, while her eyes
expressed bitter suffering and terrible dread.

"Are you afraid?"  he asked, tenderly.

Elizabeth shuddered, threw her arms passionately around his neck, and
nodded assent.

"The wagon will convey us to the Rhine Valley, please God, this very day,
and there we shall be safe," he continued, soothingly.  But she shook her
head, her features assuming an expression of indifference and contempt.
Lopez understood how to read their meaning, and asked: "So it is not the
bailiffs you fear; something else is troubling you?"

She nodded again, this time still more eagerly, drew out the crucifix,
which she had hitherto kept concealed under her coverlid, showed it to
him, then pointed upward towards heaven, lastly to herself and him, and
shrugged her shoulders with an air of deep, mournful renunciation.

"You are thinking of the other world," said Lopez; then, fixing his eyes
on the ground, he continued, in a lower tone: "I know you are tortured by
the fear of not meeting me there."

"Yes," she gasped, with a great effort, pressing her forehead against his
shoulder.

A hot tear fell on the doctor's hand, and he felt as if his own heart was
weeping with his beloved, anxious wife.

He knew that this thought had often poisoned her life and, full of tender
sympathy, turned her beautiful face towards him and pressed a long kiss
on her closed eyes, then said, tenderly:

"You are mine, I am yours, and if there is a life beyond the grave, and
an eternal justice, the dumb will speak as they desire, and sing wondrous
songs with the angels; the sorrowful will again be happy there.  We will
hope, we will both hope!  Do you remember how I read Dante aloud to you,
and tried to explain his divine creation, as we sat on the bench by the
fig-tree.  The sea roared below us, and our hearts swelled higher than
its storm-lashed waves.  How soft was the air, how bright the sunshine!
This earth seemed doubly beautiful to you and me as, led by the hand of
the divine seer and singer, we descended shuddering to the nether world.
There the good and noble men of ancient times walked in a flowery meadow,
and among them the poet beheld in solitary grandeur--do you still
remember how the passage runs?  'E solo in parte vidi 'l Saladino.'
Among them he also saw the Moslem Saladin, the conqueror of the
Christians.  If any one possessed the key of the mysteries of the other
world, Elizabeth, it was Dante.  He assigned a lofty place to the pagan,
who was a true man--a man with a pure mind, a zeal for goodness and
right, and I think I shall have a place there too.  Courage, Elizabeth,
courage!"

A beautiful smile had illumined the wife's features, while she was
reminded of the happiest hours of her life, but when he paused, gazed
into her eyes, and clasped her right hand in his, she was seized with an
intense longing to pray once, only once, with him to the Saviour so,
drawing her fingers from his, she pressed the image of the Crucified One
to her breast with her left hand, pleading with mute motions of her lips,
inteligible to him alone, and with ardent entreaty in her large, tearful
eyes: "Pray, pray with me, pray to the saviour."

Lopez was greatly agitated; his heart beat faster, and a strong impulse
urged him to start up, cry "no," and not allow himself to be moved, by an
affectionate meakness, into bowing his manly soul before one, who, to
him, was no more than human.

The noble figure of the crucified Saviour, carved by an artist's hand in
ivory, hung from an ebony cross, and he thrust the image back, intending
to turn proudly way, he gazed at the face and found there only pain,
quiet endurance, and touching sorrow.  Ah, his own heart had often bled,
as the pure brow of this poor, persecuted, tortured saint bled beneath
its crown of thorns.  To defy this silent companion in suffering, was no
manly deed--to pay homage, out of love, to Him, who had brought love into
the world, seemed to possess a sweet, ensnaring charm--so he clasped his
slender hands closely round his dumb wife's fingers, pressed his dark
curls gainst Elizabeth's fair hair, and both, for the first and last
time, repeated together a mute, fervent prayer.

Before the hut, and surrounded by the forest, was a large clearing, where
two roads crossed.

Adam, Marx and Ruth had gazed first down one and then the other, to look
for the wagon, but nothing was to be seen or heard.  As, with increasing
anxiety, they turned back to the first path, the poacher grew restless.
His crooked mouth twisted to and fro in strange contortions, not a muscle
of his coarse face was till, and this looked so odd and yet so horrible,
that Ruth could not help laughing, and the smith asked what ailed him.

Marx made no reply; his ear had caught the distant bay of a dog, and he
knew what the sound meant.  Work at the anvil impairs the hearing, and
the smith did not notice the approaching peril, and repeated: "What ails
you, man?"

"I am freezing," replied the charcoal-burner, cowering, with a piteous
expression.

Ruth heard no more of the conversation, she had stopped and put her hand
to her ear, listening with head bent forward, to the noises in the
distance.

Suddenly she uttered a low cry, exclaiming: "There's a dog barking,
Meister Adam, I hear it."

The smith turned pale and shook his head, but she cried earnestly:
"Believe me; I hear it.  Now it's barking again."

Adam too, now heard a strange noise in the forest.  With lightning speed
he loosened the hammer in his belt, took Ruth by the hand, and ran up the
clearing with her.

Meantime, Lopez had compelled old Rahel to rise.

Everything must be ready, when Ulrich returned.  In his impatience he had
gone to the door, and when he saw Adam hurrying up the glade with the
child, ran anxiously to meet them, thinking that some accident had
happened to Ulrich.

"Back, back!" shouted the smith, and Ruth, releasing her hand from his,
also motioned and shrieked "Back, back!"

The doctor obeyed the warning, and stopped; but he had scarcely turned,
when several dogs appeared at the mouth of the ravine through which the
party had come the day before, and directly after Count Frohlinger, on
horseback, burst from the thicket.

The nobleman sat throned on his spirited charger, like the sun-god
Siegfried.  His fair locks floated dishevelled around his head, the steam
rising from the dripping steed hovered about him in the fresh winter air
like a light cloud.  He had opened and raised his arms, and holding the
reins in his left hand, swung his hunting spear with the right.  On
perceiving Lopez, a clear, joyous, exultant "Hallo, Halali!"  rang from
his bearded lips.

To-day Count Frohlinger was not hunting the stag, but special game, a
Jew.

The chase led to the right cover, and how well the hounds had done, how
stoutly Emir, his swift hunter, had followed.

This was a morning's work indeed!

"Hallo, Halali!" he shouted exultingly again, and ere the fugitives had
escaped from the clearing, reached the doctor's side, exclaiming:

"Here is my game; to your knees, Jew!"

The count had far outstripped his attendants, and was entirely alone.

As Lopez stood still with folded arms, paying no heed to his command, he
turned the spear, to strike him with the handle.

Then, for the first time in many years, the old fury awoke in Adam's
heart; and rushing upon the count like a tiger, he threw his powerful
arms around his waist, and ere he was aware of the attack, hurled him
from his horse, set his knee on his breast, snatched the hammer from his
belt, and with a mighty blow struck the dog that attacked him, to the
earth.  Then he again swung the iron, to crush the head of his hated foe.
But Lopez would not accept deliverance at such a price, and cried in a
tone of passionate entreaty:

"Let him go, Adam, spare him."

As he spoke, he clung to the smith's arm, and when the latter tried to
release himself from his grasp, said earnestly:

"We will not follow their example!"

Again the hammer whizzed high in the air, and again the Jew clung to the
smith's arm, this time exclaiming imperiously:

"Spare him, if you are my friend!"

What was his strength in comparison with Adam's?  Yet as the hammer rose
for the third time, he again strove to prevent the terrible deed, seizing
the infuriated man's wrist, and gasping, as in the struggle he fell on
his knees beside the count: "Think of Ulrich!  This man's son was the
only one, the only one in the whole monastery, who stood by Ulrich, your
child--in the monastery--he was--his friend--among so many.  Spare him--
Ulrich!  For Ulrich's sake, spare him!"

During this struggle the smith had held the count down with his left
hand, and defended himself against Lopez with the right.

One jerk, and the hand upraised for murder was free again--but he did not
use it.  His friend's last words had paralyzed him.

"Take it," he said in a hollow tone, giving the hammer to the doctor.

The latter seized it, and rising joyously, laid his hand on the shoulder
of the smith, who was still kneeling on the count's breast, and said
beseechingly: "Let that suffice.  The man is only...."

He went no farther--a gurgling, piercing cry of pain escaped his lips,
and pressing one hand to his breast, and the other to his brow, he sank
on the snow beside the stump of a giant pine.

A squire dashed from the forest--the archer, to whom this noble quarry
had fallen a victim, appeared in the clearing, holding aloft the cross-
bow from which he had sent the bolt.  His arrow was fixed in the doctor's
breast; alas, the man had only sent the shaft, to save his fallen master
from the hammer in the Jew's hand.

Count Frohlinger rose, struggling for breath; his hand sought his
hunting-knife, but in the fall it had slipped from its sheath and was
lying in the snow.

Adam supported his dying friend in his arms, Ruth ran weeping to the hut,
and before the nobleman had fully collected his thoughts, the squire
reached his side, and young Count Lips, riding a swift bay-horse, dashed
from the forest, closely followed by three mounted huntsmen.

When the attendants saw their master on foot, they too sprang from their
saddles, Lips did the same, and an eager interchange of question and
answer began among them.

The nobleman scarcely noticed his son, but greeted with angry words the
man who had shot the Jew.  Then, deeply excited, he hoarsely ordered his
attendants to bind the smith, who made no resistance, but submitted to
everything like a patient child.

Lopez no longer needed his arms.

The dumb wife sat on the stump, with her dying husband resting on her
lap.  She had thrown her arms around the bleeding form, and the feet hung
limply down, touching the snow.

Ruth, sobbing bitterly, crouched on the ground by her mother's side, and
old Rahel, who had entirely regained her self-control, pressed a cloth,
wet with wine, on his forehead.

The young count approached the dying Jew.  His father slowly followed,
drew the boy to his side, and said in a low, sad tone:

"I am sorry for the man; he saved my life."

The wounded man opened his eyes, saw Count Frohlinger, his son and the
fettered smith, felt his wife's tears on his brow, and heard Ruth's
agonized weeping.  A gentle smile hovered around his pale lips, and when
he tried to raise his head Elizabeth helped him, pressing it gently to
her breast.

The feeble lips moved and Lopez raised his eyes to her face, as if to
thank her, saying in a low voice: "The arrow--don't touch it....
Elizabeth--Ruth, we have clung together faithfully, but now--I shall
leave you alone, I must leave you."  He paused, a shadow clouded his
eyes, and the lids slowly fell.  But he soon raised them again, and
fixing his glance steadily on the count, said:

"Hear me, my Lord; a dying man should be heard, even if he is a Jew.  See!
This is my wife, and this my child.  They are Christians.  They will soon
be alone in the world, deserted, orphaned.  The smith is their only
friend.  Set him free; they--they, they will need a protector.  My wife
is dumb, dumb....alone in the world.  She can neither beseech nor demand.
Set Adam free, for the sake of your Saviour, your son, free--yes, free.
A wide, wide space must be between you; he must go away with them, far
away.  Set him free!  I held his arm with the hammer....  You know--with
the hammer.  Set him free.  My death--death atones for everything."

Again his voice failed, and the count, deeply moved, looked irresolutely
now at him, now at the smith.  Lips's eyes filled with tears; and as he
saw his father delay in fulfilling the dying man's last wish, and a
glance from the dim eyes met his, he pressed closer to the noble, who
stood struggling with many contending emotions, and whispered, weeping:

"My Lord and Father, my Lord and Father, tomorrow will be Christmas.
For Christ's sake, for love of me, grant his request: release Ulrich's
father, set him free!  Do so, my noble Father; I want no other Christmas
gift."

Count Frohlinger's heart also overflowed, and when, raising his tear-
dimmed eyes, he saw Elizabeth's deep grief stamped on her gentle
features, and beheld reclining on her breast, the mild, beautiful face of
the dying man, it seemed as if he saw before him the sorrowful Mother of
God--and to-morrow would be Christmas.  Wounded pride was silent, he
forgot the insult he had sustained, and cried in a voice as loud, as if
he wished every word to reach the ear now growing dull in death:

"I thank you for your aid, man.  Adam is free, and may go with your wife
and child wherever he lists.  My word upon it; you can close your eyes in
peace!"

Lopez smiled again, raised his hand as if in gratitude, then let it fall
upon his child's head, gazed lovingly at Ruth for the last time, and
murmured in a low tone "Lift my head a little higher, Elizabeth."  When
she had obeyed his wish, he gazed earnestly into her face, whispered
softly: "A dreamless sleep--reanimated to new forms in the endless
circle.  No!--Do you see, do you hear....Solo in parte'....with you
....with you....Oh, oh!--the arrow--draw the arrow from the wound.
Elizabeth, Elizabeth--it aches.  Well--well--how miserable we were, and
yet, yet....You--you--I--we--we know, what happiness is.  You--I....
Forgive me!  I forgive, forgive...."

The dying man's hand fell from his child's head, his eyes closed, but the
pleasant smile with which he had perished, hovered around his lips, even
in death.




CHAPTER XI.

Count Frohlinger added a low "amen" to the last words of the dying man,
then approached the widow, and in the kindly, cordial manner natural to
him, strove to comfort her.

Finally he ordered his men, to loose the smith's bonds, and instantly
guide him to the frontier with the woman and child.  He also spoke to
Adam, but said only a few words, not cheery ones as usual, but grave and
harsh in purport.

They were a command to leave the country without delay, and never return
to his home again.

The Jew's corpse was laid on a bier formed of pine, branches, and the
bearers lifted it on their shoulders.  Ruth clung closely to her mother,
both trembling like leaves in the wind, while he who was dearest to
them on earth was borne away, but only the child could weep.

The men, whom Count Frohlinger had left behind as a guard, waited
patiently with the smith for his son's return until noon, then they urged
departure, and the party moved forward.

Not a word was spoken, till the, travellers stopped before the charcoal-
burner's house.

Jorg was in the city, but his wife said that the boy had been there, and
had gone back to the forest an hour before.  The tavern could accommodate
a great many people, she added, and they could wait for him there.

The fugitives followed this advice, and after Adam had seen the women
provided with shelter, he again sought the scene of the misfortune, and
waited there for the boy until night.

Beside the stump on which his friend had died, he prayed long and
earnestly, vowing to his dead preserver to live henceforth solely for his
family.  Unbroken stillness surrounded him, it seemed as if he were in
church, and every tree in the forest was a witness of the oath he swore.

The next morning the smith again sought the charcoal-burner, and this
time found him.  Jorg laid the blame to Ulrich's impatience, but promised
to go to Marx in search of him and bring him to the smith.  The men
composing the escort urged haste, so Adam went on without Ulrich towards
the north-west, to the valley of the Rhine.

The charcoal-burner had lost the reward offered the informer, and could
not even earn the money due a messenger.

He had lured Ulrich to the attic and locked him in there, but during his
absence the boy escaped.  He was a nimble fellow, for he had risked the
leap from the window, and then swung himself over the fence into the
road.

Jorg's conjecture did not deceive him, for as soon as Ulrich perceived
that he had been betrayed into a trap, he had leaped into the open air.

He must warn his friends, and anxiety for them winged his feet.

Once and again he lost his way, but at last found the right path, though
he had wasted many hours, first in the village, then behind the locked
door, and finally in searching for the right road.

The sun had already passed the meridian, when he at last reached the
clearing.

The but was deserted; no one answered his loud, anxious shouts.

Where had they gone?

He searched the wide, snow-covered expanse for traces, and found only too
many.  Here horses' hoofs, there large and small feet had pressed the
snow, yonder hounds had run, and--Great Heaven!--here, by the tree-stump,
red blood stained the glimmering white ground.

His breath failed, but he did not cease to search, look, examine.

Yonder, where for the length of a man the snow had vanished and grass and
brown earth appeared, people had fought together, and there--Holy Virgin!
What was this!--there lay his father's hammer.  He knew it only too well;
it was the smaller one, which to distinguish it from the two larger
tools, Goliath and Samson, he called David-the boy had swung it
a hundred times himself.

His heart stood still, and when he found some freshly-hewn pine-boughs,
and a fir-trunk that had been rejected by one of the men, he said to
himself: "The bier was made here," and his vivid imagination showed him
his father fighting, struck down, and then a mournful funeral procession.
Exulting bailiffs bore a tall strong-limbed corpse, and a slender, black-
robed body, his father and his teacher.  Then came the quiet, beautiful
wife and Ruth in bonds, and behind them Marx and Rahel.  He distinctly
saw all this; it even seemed as if he heard the sobs of the women, and
wailing bitterly, he thrust his hands in his floating locks and ran to
and fro.  Suddenly he thought that the troopers would return to seize him
also.  Away, away! anywhere--away!  a voice roared and buzzed in his
ears, and he set out on a run towards the south, always towards the
south.

The boy had not eaten a mouthful, since the oatmeal porridge obtained at
the charcoal-burner's, in the morning, but felt neither hunger nor
thirst, and dashed on and on without heeding the way.

Long after his father had left the clearing for the second time, he still
ran on--but gasping for breath while his steps grew slower and shorter.
The moon rose, one star after another revealed its light, yet he still
struggled forward.

The forest lay behind him; he had reached a broad road, which he followed
southward, always southward, till his strength utterly failed.  His head
and hands were burning like fire, yet it was very, very cold; but little
snow lay here in the valley, and in many places the moonlight showed
patches of bare, dark turf.

Grief was forgotten.  Fatigue, anxiety and hunger completely engrossed
the boy's mind.  He felt tempted to throw himself down in the road and
sleep, but remembered the frozen people of whom he had heard, and dragged
himself on to the nearest village.  The lights had long been
extinguished; as he approached, dogs barked in the yards, and the
melancholy lowing of a cow echoed from many a stable.  He was again among
human beings; the thought exerted a soothing influence; he regained his
self-control, and sought a shelter for the night.

At the end of the village stood a barn, and Ulrich noticed by the
moonlight an open hatchway in the wall.  If he could climb up to it!  The
framework offered some support for fingers and toes, so he resolved to
try it.

Several times, when Half-way up, he slipped to the ground, but at last
reached the top, and found a bed in the soft hay under a sheltering roof.
Surrounded by the fragrance of the dried grasses, he soon fell asleep,
and in a dream saw amidst various confused and repulsive shapes, first
his father with a bleeding wound in his broad chest, and then the doctor,
dancing with old Rahel.  Last of all Ruth appeared; she led him into the
forest to a juniper-bush, and showed him a nest full of young birds.  But
the half-naked creatures vexed him, and he trampled them under foot, over
which the little girl lamented so loudly and bitterly, that he awoke.

Morning was already dawning, his head ached, and he was very cold and
hungry, but he had no desire nor thought except to proceed; so he again
went out into the open air, brushed off the hay that still clung to his
hair and clothes, and walked on towards the south.

It had grown warmer and was beginning to snow heavily.

Walking became more and more difficult; his headache grew unendurable,
yet his feet still moved, though it seemed as if he wore heavy leaden
shoes.

Several freight-wagons with armed escorts, and a few peasants, with
rosaries in their hands, who were on their way to church, met the lad,
but no one had overtaken him.

On the hinge of noon he heard behind him the tramp of horses' hoofs and
the rattle of wheels, approaching nearer and nearer with ominous haste.

If it should be the troopers!

Ulrich's heart stood still, and turning to look back, he saw several
horsemen, who were trotting past a spur of the hill around which the road
wound.

Through the falling flakes the boy perceived glittering weapons, gay
doublets and scarfs, and now--now--all hope was over, they wore Count
Frohlinger's colors!

Unless the earth should open before him, there was no escape.  The road
belonged to the horsemen; on the right lay a wide, snow-covered plain, on
the left rose a cliff, kept from falling on the side towards the highway
by a rude wall.  It needed this support less on account of the road, than
for the sake of a graveyard, for which the citizens of the neighboring
borough used the gentle slope of the mountain.

The graves, the bare elder-bushes and bushy cypresses in the cemetery
were covered with snow, and the brighter the white covering that rested
on every surrounding object, the stronger was the relief in which the
black crosses stood forth against it.

A small chapel in the rear of the graveyard caught Ulrich's eye.  If it
was possible to climb the wall, he might hide behind it.  The horsemen
were already close at his heels, when he summoned all his remaining
strength, rushed to a stone projecting from the wall, and began to
clamber up.

The day before it would have been a small matter for him to reach the
cemetery; but now the exhausted boy only dragged himself upward, to slip
on the smooth stones and lose the hold, that the dry, snow-covered plants
growing in the wide crevices treacherously offered him.

The horsemen had noticed him, and a young man-at-arms exclaimed:
"A runaway!  See how the young vagabond acts.  I'll seize him."

He set spurs to his horse as he spoke, and just as the boy succeeded in
reaching his goal, grasped his foot; but Ulrich clung fast to a
gravestone, so the shoe was left in the trooper's hand and his comrades
burst into a loud laugh.  It sounded merry, but it echoed in the ears of
the tortured lad like a shriek from hell, and urged him onward.  He
leaped over two, five, ten graves--then he stumbled over a head-stone
concealed by the snow.

With a great effort he rose again, but ere he reached the chapel fell
once more, and now his will was paralyzed.  In mortal terror he clung to
a cross, and as his senses failed, thought of "the word."  It seemed as
if some one had called the right one, and from pure Weakness and fatigue,
he could not remember it.

The young soldier was not willing to encounter the jeers of his comrades,
by letting the vagabond escape.  With a curt: "Stop, you rascal," he
threw the shoe into the graveyard, gave his bridle to the next man in the
line; and a few minutes after was kneeling by Ulrich's side.  He shook
and jerked him, but in vain; then growing anxious, called to the others
that the boy was probably dead.

"People never die so quickly!"  cried the greyhaired leader of the band:
"Give him a blow."

The youth raised his arm, but did not strike the lad.  He had looked into
Ulrich's face, and found something there that touched his heart.  "No,
no," he shouted, "come up here, Peter; a handsome boy; but it's all over
with him, I say."

During this delay, the traveller whom the men were escorting, and his
old servant, approached the cemetery at a rapid trot.  The former, a
gentleman of middle age, protected from the cold by costly furs, saw with
a single hasty glance the cause of the detention.

Instantly dismounting, he followed the leader of the troop to the end of
the wall, where there was a flight of rude steps.

Ulrich's head now lay in the soldier's arms, and the traveller gazed at
him with a look of deep sympathy.  The steadfast glance of his bright
eyes rested on the boy's features as if spellbound, then he raised his
hand, beckoned to the elder soldier, and exclaimed: "Lift him; we'll take
him with us; a corner can be found in the wagon."

The vehicle, of which the traveller spoke, was slow in coming.  It was a
long four-wheeled equipage, over which, as a protection against wind and
storm, arched a round, sail-cloth cover.  The driver crouched among the
straw in a basket behind the horses, like a brooding hen.

Under the sheltering canopy, among the luggage of the fur-clad gentleman,
sat and reclined four travellers, whom the owner of the vehicle had
gradually picked up, and who formed a motley company.

The two Dominican friars, Magisters Sutor and Stubenrauch, had entered