Mary called to him again, saying frankly: "I will not
let you go so, Luis! You are an honest man, and I am ashamed to deceive
you. The cure of his Majesty's melancholy is my principal object, it is
true, but one half the expense of this medicine ought to be credited to
me; for--but do not tell the treasurer--for it will afford me relief
also. I can endure these rooms no longer. The forest is putting forth its
first green leafage. The birds are returning. Red deer are plenty in the
woods along the Danube. I must get out of doors into the open air. As
matters are now, I could not leave his Majesty; but when the band and the
boy choir are at his disposal, they will dispel his melancholy moods, and
I can venture later to leave him to you and Malfalconnet, whose wit will
be freshly seasoned by the payment of his debts. O Luis! if only I can
get out of doors! Meanwhile, may music do for my imperial brother what we
anticipate! And one thing more: Take Master Adrian with you. I released
him from attendance upon the Emperor until midnight. It was no easy
matter. When you have provided the favourites of Apollo with lodgings,
come to me again, however late the hour may be. Sir Wolf Hartschwert must
call early to-morrow morning. The nuncio brought some new songs from
Rome. The music is too high for my voice, and the knight understands how
to transpose the notes for me better than even the leader of the choir,
Appenzelder."

CHAPTER II.

The April sun, ere it sank to rest, had won the victory and kindly dried
the garments of the horsemen who were approaching Ratisbon by the
Nuremberg road.

A young man who had ridden forward in advance of the great train of
travellers behind him checked his steed above the village of Kneiting,
just where the highway descended in many a curve to the valley of the
Danube, and gazed at the landscape whose green spring leafage, freshened
by rain, appeared before him.

His heart throbbed faster, and he thought that he had seen no fairer
prospect in all the wide tract of earth over which he had wandered during
the past five years. Below him were green meadows and fields, pleasant
villages, and the clear, full current of the Danube, along whose left
bank extended a beautifully formed mountain chain, whose declivity toward
the river presented a rich variety to the eye, for sometimes it was
clothed in budding groves, sometimes displayed picturesque bare cliffs,
and again vineyards in which laboure