[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





IN THE BLUE PIKE

By Georg Ebers

Volume 1.


Translated from the German by Mary T. Safford



CHAPTER I.

"May a thunderbolt strike you!" The imprecation suited the rough fellow
who uttered it. He had pointed out of doors as he spoke, and scarcely
lowered the strange tones of his voice, yet of all the rabble who
surrounded him only two persons understood his meaning--a fading, sickly
girl, and the red-haired woman, only a few years her senior, who led the
swearing man by a chain, like a tame bear.

The Nuremberg magistrates had had Cyriax's tongue cropped for gross
blasphemy, and listeners could scarcely comprehend the words he mangled