would not force a desperate person to take extreme measures; but should
this rash duke be blind to his own interests--well, let him beware! Some
one _might_ carry off his daughter right from under the ducal nose. Then
let the Burgundian follow at his peril. Castle Hapsburg would open his
eyes. He would learn what an impregnable castle really is. If Duke
Charles thought he could bring his soft-footed Walloons, used only to
the mud roads of Burgundy, up the stony path to the hawk's crag, why,
let him try! Harmless boasting is a boy's vent. Max did not really mean
to boast, he was only wishing; and to a flushed, enthusiastic soul, the
wish of to-day is apt to look like the fact of to-morrow.

We hoped to find a caravan ready to leave Linz, but we were
disappointed, so we journeyed by the Danube to the mouth of the Inn, up
which we went to Muhldorf. There we found a small caravan bound for
Munich on the Iser. From Munich we travelled with a caravan to Augsburg,
and thence to Ulm, where we were overjoyed to meet once more our old
friend, the Danube. Max snatched up a handful of water, kissed it, and
tossed it back to the river, saying:--"Sweet water, carry my kiss to the
river Save; there give it to a nymph that you will find waiting, and
tell her to take it to my dear old mother in far-off Styria."

Do not think that we met with no hard fortune in our journeying. My gold
was exhausted before we reached Muhldorf, and we often travelled hungry,
meeting with many lowly adventures. Max at first resented the
familiarity of strangers, but hunger is one of the factors in
man-building, and the scales soon began to fall from his eyes. Dignity
is a good thing to stand on, but a poor thing to travel with, and Max
soon found it the most cumbersome piece of luggage a knight-errant
could carry.