CHAPTER IX.

As soon as the sufferer's condition would permit, Kuni left her, went to
the window of the taproom in The Blue Pike, and surveyed its inmates.

Most of them were already asleep on heaps of straw, which were raised at
the head by chairs turned upside down. The richer guests had gone to the
bedrooms, which, however, they were obliged to share with several others.
Some of the strollers were lying on the floor with their knapsacks under
their heads. A few of the musicians were still lingering over the wine
which the travelling merchants and artisans had ordered for them. Others
had gone with some of the vagrants into the little wood beyond the
meadow, where they danced, fiddled, and sang.

Their loud shouts were borne by the cool night breeze to the sufferer in
the cart. The gentlemen from Cologne, without troubling themselves about
the boisterous merriment of the burghers or the transformation of the
room into a sleeping apartment, were still sitting at the table talking
together eagerly.

The dealer in the indulgences, too, had not yet gone to rest. A tall,
broad-shouldered sergeant belonging to the escort had just purchased--
for the larger part of the zecchins won as his share of the booty in the
Italian war--the indulgence which he thought would secure him from the
tortures of the fire of purgatory. Before opening the door, he struck
his broad breast as though relieved of a heavy burden.

The ropedancer looked after him thoughtfully. The paper had now
lightened the sergeant's heart as it had formerly done her own. Would
she not have been wiser to give her money for the redemption of Nickel's