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
in his gasping speech.

The red-haired woman dropped the knife with which she was slicing bread
and onions into a pot, and looked at her companion with an anxious,
questioning glance.

"Nuremberg Honourables," he stammered as fast as he could, snatched his
wife's shawl from her shoulders, and drew it over his unkempt head.

The woman beckoned to their travelling companions--a lame fellow of
middle age who, propped on crutches, leaned against the wall, an older
pock-marked man with a bloated face, and the sickly girl--calling to them
in the harsh, metallic voice peculiar to hawkers and elderly singers at
fairs.

"Help Cyriax hide. You first, Jungel! They needn't recognise him as soon
as they get in. Nuremberg magistrates are coming. Aristocratic
blood-suckers of the Council. Who knows what may still be on the tally
for us?"

Kuni, the pale-faced girl, wrapped her bright-coloured garment tighter
around her mutilated left leg, and obeyed. Lame Jungel, too, prepared to
fulfil red-haired Gitta's wish.