ith force upon the pile. A cry of horror burst from the mass of
spectators. They thought him utterly deprived of reason, and determined,
in his madness, to die with the sorceress. But in a moment his bony
hands had torn the link that bound the chain--had unwound the chain
itself--had snatched the woman from the stake. Before, in the surprise
of the moment, a single person had stirred, his arm seized, with firm
and heavy gripe, the collar of the nearest horseman, who found himself
in his seat on horseback upon a level with the elevation of the pile. He
knocked him with violence from the saddle. The guard reeled and fell;
and in the next instant Claus had flung himself on to the horse, and in
his arms he bore the form of the half-fainting Magdalena.

With a cry--a yell--a wild scream--he shouted, "To the sanctuary! to the
sanctuary! she shall not die--room! room!" Trampling right and left to
the earth the dense crowd, who fled from his passage as from an
infuriated tiger in its spring, he dashed upon the animal over the
market-place, and darted in full gallop down the street leading to the
Bridge-gate of the town.

"After him!" cried a thousand voices. The three other horsemen had
already sprung after the fugitive. The guards hastened in the same
direction. Several of the crowd rushed down the narrow street. All was
confusion. Part of those who passed on impeded the others. Groans arose
from those who had been thrown down by the frantic passage of Claus, and
who, lying on the stones, prevented the pushing forwards of the others.

"Follow! After him! to the sanctuary!" still cried a thousand voices of
the crowd.

At the same moment a noise of horsemen was heard coming from the
entrance of the town in the opposite direction to that leading to the
bridge. Those who stood nearest turned their heads eagerly that way. The
first person who issued on the street, at full gallop, was Gottlob,
without a covering to his head--his fair hair streaming to the wind--his
handsome face pale with fatigue and excitement.

"Stop! stop!" he shouted as he advanced, and his eye fell upon the
burning pile. "I bring the prince's pardon! Save her!"

In a few moments, followed by a scanty train of attendants, appeared the
Prince Bishop of Fulda himself, in the dress--half religious, half
secular--that he wore in travelling. His mild benevolent face looked
haggard and anxious, and he also was very pale; for he had evidently
ridden hard through