that I resemble my sister very nearly.'

'Possibly!' observed the captain with a still more hateful smile. 'You
had, indeed, at that time, a rose-colored band in your blond hair, and
now you have brown locks and a black plaited cap. However, that is
not so very strange. Women's toilets often produce much greater
transformations.'

At this moment a violent outcry was heard from without. Fessel hastened
from the room, and soon returned with his eldest apprentice, who was
profusely bleeding from a wound on the head.

'What is the matter?' asked the captain, addressing himself to the
wounded man. 'How dare you thus disturb me while at table?'

'By your leave, captain!' said the apprentice, with confidence; 'your
sergeant has robbed me of all the money I had about me, and then beat
me over the head with his sword because I had no more to give him. It
was proper that I should complain to you in order that you might take
measures to punish the outrage.'

'You did not know how to behave yourself properly, my son,' said the
captain. 'My people are always kind and harmless as children to all who
are complaisant towards them, and give them every thing they desire. Go
and have your wound dressed, and be more careful another time.'

'Is that all the satisfaction I am to get for my injuries?' asked the
apprentice, irritated by the pain of his wound, and still more by the
captain's contemptuous answer.

The captain's eyes flashed like two baneful meteors.
'Satisfaction!--injuries! How dare you, a damned heretic, use such
words in my presence? vociferated he, starting from his seat. You ought
to thank God that my sergeant did not cleave your head asunder. Pack
yourself hence, if you do not wish that I should complete the work he
began.'

He grasped his sword, the young man sprang beyond his reach, and
Katharine, in soft and soothing tones, besought the savage to be
pacified; but the last link of the chain, by which his natural
brutality had hitherto been restrained, was now broken; the wild beast
in human form was let loose, and yielded only to the most savage
impulses.

'Do you suppose, vagabonds,' roared the fiend, 'that we have come here
to keep strict discipline and to wait quietly for what you may please
to dispense to us? We are come to chastise you for your heresy, which
is a revolt alike against God and the emperor. We are come to convert
you to the true faith; and if your stubbornness will not suffer our
object to