tendency to disease had long awakened the apprehension of the physicians,
contracted convulsively. The sight of a fellow-being hovering in mortal
peril above her head seemed unendurable. Not until she followed
Lienhard's advice and avoided looking up, did she regain her calmness.
Her changeful temperament soon recovered its former cheerfulness, and the
friend at her side to whom the lovely child, with her precocious mental
development, appeared like the fairest marvel, took care, often as he
himself looked upward, that she should be guarded from a second attack of
weakness.

The storm of applause from below, in which Lienhard also joined, fanned
the flames of desire for admiration in Kuni's breast to a fiery glow. She
would show him, too, what she could do--compel him to applaud her. She
would force him away from the little temptress, and oblige him to gaze up
at her whose art--she learned this daily--possessed the power to fix the
attention of spectators like the thrall of the basilisk's eye. When on
the rope she was no insignificant personage. He should tremble for her as
did the gray-haired, scarred captain of the foot soldiers, Mannsbach, the
day before yesterday. He had told her that his heart had throbbed more
anxiously during her daring feats than on the bloodiest field of battle.

She moved forward more swiftly to the time of the lively dancing tune
which the city pipers were playing. Midway along the rope she turned, ran
back to the cross-shaped trestle at the steeple window, handed the
balancing pole to Loni, and received a cage filled with doves. Each one
bore around its neck a note containing an expression of homage to the
Emperor Maximilian, and they were all trained to alight near the richly
decorated throne which was now occupied by the chivalrous monarch. The
clown who, with a comical show of respect, offered her what she needed
for her next feat, told her this.