ld leave the task
of filling the jugs to his young assistants.

What were the envoys outside doing? They were well off. In here the
atmosphere was stifling from the fumes emanating from the throng of
people, the wine, and the food. It seemed to draw all the flies from
far and near. Whence did they come? They seemed to have increased by
thousands since the early morning, when the room was empty. The outside
air appeared delightful to breathe. He longed to fill his lungs again
with the pure wind of heaven, and at the same time catch a few words of
the conversation between the envoys to the Reichstag.

So Dietel hobbled to the open window, where the strollers were resting.

Cyriax was lying on the floor asleep, with the brandy bottle in his
arms. Two of his companions, with their mouths wide open, were snoring
at his side. Raban, who begged for blood-money, was counting the copper
coins which he had received. Red-haired Gitta was sewing another patch
of cloth upon her rough husband's already well-mended jerkin by the dim
light of a small lamp, into which she had put some fat and a bit of rag
for a wick. It was difficult to thread the needle. Had it not been for
the yellow blaze of the pitchpans fastened to the wall with iron
clamps, which had already been burning an hour, she could scarcely have
succeeded.

"Make room there," the waiter called to the vagrants, giving the
sleeping Jungel a push with his club foot. The latter grasped his
crutch, as he had formerly seized the sword he carried as a foot soldier
ere he lost his leg before Padua. Then, with a Spanish oath learned
in the Netherlands, he turned over, still half asleep, on his side. So
Dietel found room, and, after vainly looking for Kuni among the others,
gazed out at the starlit sky.

Yonder, in front of the house, beside the tall oleanders which grew
in wine casks cut in halves instead of in tubs, the learned and
aristocratic gentlemen sat around the table with outstretched heads,
examining by the light of the torches the pages which Dr. Eberbach drew
forth, one after another, from the inexhaustible folds of the front of
his black robe.

Dietel, the schoolmaster's son, who had once sat on the bench with the
pupils of the Latin class, pricked up his cars; he heard foreign words
which interested him like echoes of memories of his childhood. He did
not understand them, yet he liked to listen, for they made him think of
his dead father. He had always meant ki