b with you?"

"Your capable lieutenant, sir," said Ebearhard, before his slower
companion could begin to frame a sentence, "allowed the men to think
they were having their own way, but in reality diverted them into his,
so they are now enjoying a credit of one liter each at the tavern of the
Golden Anker."

"That," said Roland, "is but as a drop of water in a parched desert.
Have they discovered you hold the money, Greusel?"

"No, not yet; but I fear they will begin to suspect by and by. I suppose
you went down the valley of the brook to the Rhine, and overhauled the
barge there?"

"I suppose so," said Roland. "What else did you think I could do?"

"I was sure you had done that, but I feared you would turn the barge
back to Frankfort."

"I never thought of such a thing. Indeed, the captain told me he met
difficulty enough navigating the shallow Main, and I think he prefers
the deeper Rhine. Of course, you know why I left you."

The men looked at each other without reply, and Roland laughed.

"I see you have been harboring dark suspicions, but the case is very
simple. The pious monks tell us that the Scriptures say if a man asks us
to go one league with him, we should go two. My good friends of the
guild last night made a most reasonable request, namely, that I should
bestow upon them three thalers each, and surely, to quote the monks
again, the laborer is worthy of his hire."

"Oh, that is the way you look upon it, then," said Greusel.

"From a scriptural point of view, yes; and I am going to better the
teachings of my young days by giving each of the men ten times the
amount he desired. Thirty thalers each are waiting in this bag for
them."

"By my sword!" cried Ebearhard, "if that isn't setting a premium on
mutiny it comes perilously close."

"Not so, Ebearhard; not so. You and Greusel did not mutiny, therefore to
each of you I give a hundred and thirty thalers, which is the thirty
thalers the mutineers receive, and a hundred thalers extra, as a reward
of virtue because you did not join them. After all, there is much to be
said for the men's point of view. I had led them ruthlessly under a
burning July sun, along a rough and shadeless road, then dragged them
away from the ample wine-vaults of Sonnenberg; next guided them on
through brambles, over streams, into bogs and out again; and lastly,
when they were dog-tired, hungry and ill-tempered, I carelessly pointed
to a section of the landscape, and said,