The Project Gutenberg EBook of Complete Short Works, by Georg Ebers

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Title: Complete Short Works

Author: Georg Ebers

Last Updated: March 10, 2009
Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #5592]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE SHORT WORKS ***

Produced by David Widger

THE COMPLETE SHORT WORKS OF GEORG EBERS

By Georg Ebers

CONTENTS:

In The Blue Pike
A Question
The Elixir
The Greylock
The Nuts

IN THE BLUE PIKE, Complete

By Georg Ebers

Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford

CHAPTER I.

"May a thunderbolt strike you!" The imprecation suited the rough fellow
who uttered it. He had pointed out of doors as he spoke, and scarcely
lowered the strange tones of his voice, yet of all the rabble who
surrounded him only two persons understood his meaning--a fading, sickly
girl, and the red-haired woman, only a few years her senior, who led the
swearing man by a chain, like a tame bear.

The Nuremberg magistrates had had Cyriax's tongue cropped for gross
blasphemy, and listeners could scarcely comprehend the words he mangled
in his gasping speech.

The red-haired woman dropped the knife with which she was slicing bread
and onions into a pot, and looked at her companion with an anxious,
questioning glance.

"Nuremberg Honourables," he stammered as fast as he could, snatched his
wife's shawl from her shoulders, and drew it over his unkempt head.

The woman beckoned to their travelling companions--a lame fellow of
middle age who, propped on crutches, leaned against the wall, an older
pock-marked man with a bloated face, and the sickly girl--calling
to them in the harsh, metallic voice peculiar to hawkers and elderly
singers at fairs.

"Help Cyriax hide. You first, Jungel! They needn't recognise him as
soon as they get in. Nuremberg magistrates are coming. Aristocratic
blood-suckers of the Council. Who knows what may still be on the tally
for us?"

Kuni, the pale-faced girl, wrapped her bright-coloured garment tighter
around her mutilated left leg, and obeyed. Lame Jungel, too, prepared to
fulfil red-haired Gitta's wish.

But Raba