'But how can I get out?' asked Conrad again. 'Nobody may leave the
town.'

'In about an hour's time there is to be a sortie from the Donat Gate,
and you can manage to creep out with the men. Roller the miner is
going out with them as well; he and Wahle are going all the way to
General Piccolomini in Bohemia, but on no account show the safe-conduct
to him.'

'I should like just to run home to mother,' said Conrad, 'to tell her
about the box, and say good-bye to her.'

'Now would you really be so unkind to a poor, frightened, blind woman
as that?' said his stepfather. 'Why, there's Roller; he has not even
told his wife, though he is going all the way to Bohemia, and you want
to make your mother unhappy because you're going a few yards outside
the city wall.'

'It is quite true, stepfather,' said Conrad with a sigh. 'So give me
my safe-conduct, and tell me how I am to get into the town again.'

'You can easily do that. You will only have to creep up the bed of the
Muenzbach. No one will take any notice of a slight youth like you.'

Conrad then received from his stepfather a folded and sealed paper, on
which was written in large letters the word 'Safe-Conduct.'

Underneath were several more words, but as they were all in Swedish the
boy could make nothing out of them. When he had taken leave of
Juechziger, the latter muttered to himself: 'Either the Swedes will put
an end to him, or else he will do my errand and never be a bit the
wiser himself. It will be a good day's work for me whichever way it
goes.'

According to his stepfather's orders, Conrad hid the safe-conduct in
his breast. He did not understand exactly what the thing was, but this
mystery only made him think all the more highly of it, and filled his
mind with a sort of confidence that his dangerous errand rendered
highly useful. When he found himself really outside the gate, and
heard the tumult of battle all around him, his heart beat thick and
fast. The men who made the sortie threw themselves at once on the
enemy's advanced works, shot or cut down such Swedes as were in them,
set fire to the wooden barricades and some detached houses that the
Swedes had used against the town, and destroyed everything belonging to
the enemy on which they could lay their hands. As soon as the foe
showed signs of bringing up men in force, the Freibergers fell back
fighting, and carried off their booty into the town.

Then Conrad found himself in a desper