find that it knows how to chase. Besides, the Nuremberg city soldiers
will help me in the search. If you don't tell me at once where the girl
went--by St. Eoban, my patron----"

Here red-haired Gitta interrupted him in a totally different tone; she
and her companions had nothing good to expect from the city soldiers.

In a very humble manner she protested that Kuni was an extraordinarily
charitable creature. In a cart standing in the meadow by the highroad
lay the widow of a beggar, Nickel; whom the peasants had hung on account
of many a swindling trick. A goose and some chickens had strayed off to
his premises. The woman had just given birth to twins when Nickel was
hung, and she was now in a violent fever, with frequent attacks of
convulsions, and yet had to nurse the infants. The landlady of The Pike
had sent her some broth and a little milk for the children. As for Kuni,
she had gone to carry some linen from her own scanty store to the two
babies, who were as naked as little frogs. He would find her with the
sick mother.

All this flowed from Gitta's lips with so much confidence that Dietel,
whose heart was easily touched by such a deed of charity, though he by no
means put full confidence in her, allowed himself to be induced to let
the city soldiers alone for the present and test the truth of her strange
statement himself.

So he prepared to go in search of the cart, but the landlord of The Pike
met him at the door, and, angrily asking what ailed him that day, ordered
him to fetch the Erbach, more of which was wanted inside. Dietel went
down into the cellar again, but this time he was not to leave it so
speedily, for the apprentice of a Nuremberg master shoemaker, whose