ons by
deception and evident quackery? How about that miracle on the
Kreuzweg?"

The young Priest smiled. "You have been in Bologna," he said, "and have
seen the leaning tower, the Asinella:

How Carisanda's tower
Nods towards the traveller, whenever a cloud
Passes over it contrary to its incline,
Causing him rather to seek another road.

This same phenomenon happened to me, when addressing the people. The
clouds were being driven by the wind across the blue heaven back of the
cross, which, since the rough spoliation of the other figures stands
much out of the perpendicular, so that it appears in fact the more the
sky is cast over, the more to nod or bend over. No one noticed this.
But when I saw that the crowd was deeply affected by the sudden death
of a wicked youth, who broke his neck at the time I prophesied, it shot
through my brain, to weld the iron whilst it was hot. Thus I made the
second miracle quickly succeed the first. You shake your head, but I
had no other means to bring the people for their own good under my
power. If ever a _pia fraus_ was permissible it was then."

"You are a Romanist," said Erastus coldly.

"I am," answered the young Priest, who seemed to increase in stature.
"I shall however leave the Palatinate, so soon as matters are so far in
order here, that your officials and clergy can carry on the work."
Saying this he stretched out his hand to Erastus as if for a last
farewell. The physician hesitatingly gave him his lame right hand. "May
it be well with you," he said. But he thought to himself: "from to-day
our paths are separate." As Erastus later on reaching a turn in the
road looked back, he saw the young Priest coming out of a house with a
child in his arms, leading another by the hand. The little ones had
apparently lost their parents.

CHAPTER V.

Erastus found a more systematic order in Petersthal, on his return in
the evening, but still much was wanting, as the four physicians with
their dozen assistants had only accomplished the half of what the
Priest had done single handed in the much larger district of Schoenau.
The laborers themselves had been obliged to undertake the burial of the
dead and the cleaning of the streets, all the healthy men having fled.
It was impossible to think of cleaning the houses, the women asserted
that they were all too weak to help in any way. They could not eve