n had glanced out, and hastily drew the cloth jerkin, patched
with green and blue linen, closer through his belt, ejaculating
anxiously:

"Young Groland of the Council. I know him."

This exclamation induced the other vagabonds to glide along the wall to
the nearest door, intending to slip out.

"A Groland?" asked Gitta, Cyriax's wife, cowering as if threatened with
a blow from an invisible hand. "It was he--"

"He?" laughed the chain-bearer, while he crouched beside her, drawing
himself into the smallest space possible. "No, Redhead! The devil
dragged the man who did that down to the lower regions long ago, on
account of my tongue. It's his son. The younger, the sharper. This
stripling made Casper Rubling,--[Dice, in gambler's slang]--poor wretch,
pay for his loaded dice with his eyesight."

He thrust his hand hurriedly into his jerkin as he spoke, and gave Gitta
something which he had concealed there. It was a set of dice, but, with
ready presence of mind, she pressed them so hard into the crumb of the
loaf of bread which she had just cut that it entirely concealed them.

All this had passed wholly unnoticed in the corner of the long, wide
room, for all the numerous travellers whom it sheltered were entirely
occupied with their own affairs. Nothing was understood except what was
said between neighbour and neighbour, for a loud uproar pervaded the
tavern of The Blue Pike.

It was one of the most crowded inns, being situated on the main ferry at
Miltenberg, where those journeying from Nuremberg, Augsburg, and other
South German cities, on their way to Frankfort and the Lower Rhine,
rested and exchanged the saddle for the ship. Just at the present
time many persons of high and low degree were on their way to Cologne,
whither the Emperor Maximilian, having been unable to come in April to
Trier on the Moselle, had summoned the Reichstag.

The opening would take place in a few days, and attracted not only
princes, counts, and knights, exalted leaders and more modest servants
of the Church, ambassadors from the cities, and other aristocrats, but
also honest tradesfolk, thriving money-lenders with the citizen's
cloak and the yellow cap of the Jew, vagrants and strollers of every
description, who hoped to practise their various feats to the best
advantage, or to fill their pockets by cheating and robbery.

This evening many had gathered in the spacious taproom of The Blue Pike.
Now those already present were to be jo