CHAPTER VIII.

The magistrate's horses did not reach the city gate, from the monastery,
more quickly than Ulrich.

As soon as the smith was roused from sleep by the boy's knock and
recognized his voice, he knew what was coming, and silently listened to
the lad's confessions, while he himself hurriedly yet carefully took out
his hidden hoard, filled a bag with the most necessary articles, thrust
his lightest hammer into his belt, and poured water on the glimmering
coals. Then, locking the door, he sent Ulrich to Hangemarx, with whom
he had already settled many things; for Caspar, the juggler, who learned
more through his daughters than any other man, had come to him the day
before, to tell him that something was being plotted against the Jew.

Adam found the latter still awake and at work. He was prepared for the
danger that threatened him, and ready to fly. No word of complaint, not
even a hasty gesture betrayed the mental anguish of the persecuted man,
and the smith's heart melted, as he heard the doctor rouse his wife and
child from their sleep.

The terrified moans of the startled wife, and Ruth's loud weeping and
curious questions, were soon drowned by the lamentations of old
Rahel, who wrapped in even more kerchiefs than usual, rushed into the
sitting-room, and while lamenting and scolding in a foreign tongue,
gathered together everything that lay at hand. She had dragged a large
chest after her, and now threw in candlesticks, jugs, and even the
chessmen and Ruth's old doll with a broken head.

When the third hour after midnight came, the doctor was ready for
departure.

Marx's charcoal sledge, with its little horse, stopped before the door.

This was a strange animal, no larger than a calf, as thin as a goat, and
in some places woolly, in others as bare as a scraped poodle.

The smith helped the dumb woman into the sleigh, the doctor put Ruth
in her lap, Ulrich consoled the child, who asked him all sorts of
questions, but the old woman would not part from the chest, and could
scarcely be induced to enter the vehicle.

"You know, across the mountains into the Rhine valley--no matter where,"
Costa whispered to the poacher.

Hangemarx urged on his little horse, and answered, not turning to the
Israelite, who had addressed him, but to Adam, who he thought would
understand him better than the bookworm: "It won't do to go up the
ravine, without making any circuit. The count's hounds will track us, if
t