CHAPTER XI.

Dietel, the waiter, had at last been released from his confinement in the
cellar, and instantly began the search for the thief in the garden with
twofold zeal.

Without considering how long a time had passed since he first tried to
bring the culprit into the clutches of the law, he had resumed the
pursuit where it was interrupted. As a thoughtless child whose bird has
flown from the cage looks into the water jug to find it, he had turned
the light of his lantern upon places where a kitten could not have hidden
itself, and had even been to the meadow on the bank of the Main to seek
Kuni with the widow of the thief Nickel; but here the sacrament was just
being given to the sufferer, and to interrupt such a ceremony would have
been a great crime. His eyes were keen, and the red pinks had gleamed
from the straw on which the dying woman lay in the light of the lantern,
whose long pole the sexton had thrust into the soft earth of the meadow.
Those flowers must have come from the garden of the landlady of The Pike,
and she valued her pinks more than anything else. The ropedancer had
gathered them for the sick woman, and certainly had not stopped at that
one act of theft. How far these vagabonds' impudence went! But he,
whose duty it was to look after the property of The Blue Pike, would
spoil their pleasure in thieving.

The dog Phylax had soon put him on the trail, and before any of the
gentlemen could reach the groaning person Dietel's triumphant shout rang