PRIOR.
First I must foil such devil's tricks as lurk
In its gem-crusted cabinet.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Away!
Deliverance posts on your return. I feel it.
For your much comfort thanks. Good-night.

PRIOR.
Good-night.
[Exit.]

ACT III.

A cell in the Wartburg Monastery. Enter PRIOR PEPPERCORN with
the casket.

PRIOR.
So! Glittering shell where doubtless shines concealed
An orient treasure fit to bribe a king,
Ransom a prince and buy him for a son.
I have baptized thee now before the altar,
Effaced the Jew's contaminating touch,
And I am free to claim the Church's tithe
From thy receptacle.
[He is about to unlock the casket, when enters Lay-Brother, and he
hastily conceals it.]

LAY-BROTHER.
Peace be thine, father!

PRIOR.
Amen! and thine. What's new?

LAY-BROTHER.
A strange Flagellant
Fresh come to Wartburg craves a word with thee.

PRIOR.
Bid him within.
[Exit Lay-Brother.
PRIOR places the casket in a Cabinet.]
Patience! No hour of the day
Brings freedom to the priest.

Reenter Lay-Brother ushering in NORDMANN, and exit.

Brother, all hail!
Blessed be thou who comest in God's name!

NORDMANN.
May the Lord grant thee thine own prayer fourfold!

PRIOR.
What is thine errand?

NORDMANN.
Look at me, my father.
Long since you called me friend.
[The PRIOR looks at him attentively, while an expression of wonder
and terror gradually overspreads his face.]

PRIOR.
Almighty God!
The grave gives up her dead. Thou canst not be--

NORDMANN.
Nordmann of Nordmannstein, the Knight of Treffurt.

PRIOR.
He was beheaded years agone.

NORDMANN.
His death
Had been decreed, but in his stead a squire
Clad in his garb and masked, paid bloody forfeit.
A loyal wretch on whom the Prince wreaked vengeance,
Rather than publish the true bird had flown.

PRIOR.
Does Frederick know thou art in Eisenach?

NORDMANN.
Who would divine the Knight of Nordmannstein
In the Flagellants' weeds? From land to land,
From town to town, we cry, "Death to the Jews!