onk at the gateway.

'A sharp hand!' thought the Thier.

'Intrude no question on me,' the monk began; 'but hold thy peace and
follow: the women release thee, and gladly.'

'That's not my plan o' life, now! Money down, and then command me': and
Schwartz Thier stood with one foot forward, and hand stretched out.

A curl of scorn darkened the cold features of the monk.

He slid one hand into a side of his frock above the girdle, and tossed a
bag of coin.

'Take it, if 'tis in thee to forfeit the greater blessing,' he cried
contemptuously.

The Thier peeped into the bag, and appeared satisfied.

'I follow,' said he; 'lead on, good father, and I'll be in the track of
holiness for the first time since my mother was quit of me.'

The monk hurried up the street and into the marketplace, oblivious of
the postures and reverences of the people, who stopped to stare at him
and his gaunt attendant. As they crossed the square, Schwartz Thier
spied Henker Rothhals starting from a wine-stall on horseback, and could
not forbear hailing him. Before the monk had time to utter a reproach,
they were deep together in a double-shot of query and reply.

'Whirr!' cried the Thier, breaking on some communication. 'Got her, have
they? and swung her across stream? I'm one with ye for my share, or call
me sheep!'

He waved his hand to the monk, and taking hold of the horse's rein, ran
off beside his mounted confederate, heavily shod as he was.

The monk frowned after him, and swelled with a hard sigh.

'Gone!' he exclaimed, 'and the accursed gold with him! Well did a voice
warn me that such service was never to be bought!'

He did not pause to bewail or repent, but returned toward the prison
with rapid footsteps, muttering: 'I with the prison-pass for two; why
was I beguiled by that bandit? Saw I not the very youth given into my
hands there, he that was with the damsel and the aged woman?'

THE RIDE AND THE RACE

Late in the noon a horseman, in the livery of the Kaiser's body-guard,
rode dry and dusty into Cologne, with tidings that the Kaiser was at
Hammerstein Castle, and commanding all convocated knights, barons,
counts, and princes, to assemble and prepare for his coming, on a
certain bare space of ground within two leagues of Cologne, thence to
swell the train of his triumphal entry into the ancient city of his
empire.

Guy the Goshawk, broad-set on a Flemish mare, and a pack-horse beside
him, shortly afterward left t