This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
The sun sometimes shone brightly upon the little round panes of theancient building, the Golden Cross, on the northern side of the square,which the people of Ratisbon call "on the moor"; sometimes it was veiledby gray clouds. A party of nobles, ecclesiastics, and knights belongingto the Emperor's train were just coming out. The spring breeze bangedbehind them the door of the little entrance for pedestrians close besidethe large main gateway.
The courtiers and ladies who were in the chapel at the right of thecorridor started. "April weather!" growled the corporal of the ImperialHalberdiers to the comrade with whom he was keeping; guard at the foot ofthe staircase leading to the apartments of Charles V, in the second storyof the huge old house.
"St. Peter's day," replied the other, a Catalonian. "At my home freshstrawberries are now growing in the open air and roses are blooming inthe gardens. Take it all in all, it's better to be dead in Barcelonathan alive in this accursed land of heretics!"
"Come, come," replied the other, "life is life! 'A live dog is betterthan a dead king,' says a proverb in my country."
"And it is right, too," replied the Spaniard. "But ever since we camehere our master's face looks as if imperial life didn't taste exactlylike mulled wine, either."
The Netherlander lowered his halberd and answered his companion's wordsfirst with a heavy sigh, and then with the remark: "Bad weather upstairsas well as down—the very worst! I've been in the service thirteenyears, but I never saw him like this, not even after the defeat inAlgiers. That means we must keep a good lookout. Present halberds!Some one is coming down."
Both quickly assumed a more erect attitude, but the Spaniard whispered tohis comrade: "It isn't he. His step hasn't sounded like that since thegout—"
"Quijada!" whispered the Netherlander, and both he and the man fromBarcelona presented halberds with true military bearing; but the stavesof their descending weapons soon struck the flags of the pavement again,for a woman's voice had detained the man whom the soldiers intended tosalute, and in his place two slender lads rushed down the steps.
The yellow velvet garments, with ash-gray facings, and cap of the samematerial in the same colours, were very becoming to these youths—theEmperor's pages—and, though the first two were sons of German andItalian counts, and the third who followed them was a Holland baron, thesentinels took little more notice of them than of Queen Mary's pointersfollowing swiftly at their heels.
"Of those up there," observed the halberdier from Haarlem under hisbreath, "a man would most willingly stiffen his back for Quijada."
"Except their Majesties, of course," added the Catalonian with dignity.
"Of course," the other repeated. "Besides, the Emperor Charles himselfbestows every honour on Don Luis. I was in Algiers at the time. Ahundred more like him would have made matters different, I can tell you.If it beseemed an insignificant fellow like me, I should like to ask whyhis Majesty took hi