h he had just entered, raised their heads to listen with him; for
from every steeple at once rang the mournful death knell which announced
to the city the decease of an "honourable" member of the Council, a
secular or ecclesiastical prince. The mourning banner was already
waving on the roof of the Town Hall, towards which he turned. Men in the
service of the city were hoisting other black flags upon the almshouse,
and now the Hegelein--[Proclaimer of decrees]--in mourning garments,
mounted on a steed caparisoned with crepe, came riding by at the head of
other horsemen clad in sable, proclaiming to the throng that Hartmann,
the Emperor Rudolph's promising son, had found an untimely end. The
noble youth was drowned while bathing in the Rhine.

It seemed as if a frost had blighted a blooming garden. The gay bustle
in the market place was paralysed. The loud sobs of many women blended
with exclamations of grief and pity from bearded lips which had just
been merrily bargaining for salt and fish, meat and game. Messengers
with crepe on their hats or caps forced a passage through the throng,
and a train of German knights, priests, and monks passed with bowed
heads, bearing candles in their hands, between the Town Hail and St.
Sebald's Church towards the corn magazine and the citadel.

Meanwhile dark clouds were spreading slowly over the bright-blue vault
of the June sky. A flock of rooks hovered around the Town Hall, and then
flew, with loud cries, towards the castle.

Seitz watched them indifferently. Even the great omnipotent sovereign
there had his own cross to bear; tears flowed in his proud palace also,
and sighs of anguish were heard. And this was just. He had never wished
evil to any one who did not injure him, but even if he could have
averted this sore sorrow from the Emperor Rudolph he would not have
stirred a finger. His coronation had been a blow to him and to his
brothers. Formerly they had been permitted to work their will on the
highways, but the Hapsburg, the Swiss, had pitilessly stopped their
brigandage. Now for the first time robber-knights were sentenced and
their castles destroyed. The Emperor meant to transform Germany into a
sheepfold, Absbach exclaimed. The Siebenburg brothers were his faithful
allies, and though they complained that the joyous, knightly clank of
arms would be silenced under such a sovereign, they themselves took care
that the loud battle shouts, cries of pain, and shrieks for aid were