bright
and angry, that Junker von Warmond looked at his phlegmatic friend in
astonishment, while the captain called:

"Then station yourself in the first company beside my ensign. You don't
look as if you felt like jesting, and the work will be in earnest now,
bloody earnest."

Allertssohn walked out of doors with a steady step, addressed his men
in a few curt, vigorous words, ordered the drummers to beat their drums,
while marching through the city, to rouse the people at the fair, placed
himself at the head of his trusty little band, and led them towards the
new Rhine.

The moon shone brightly down into the quiet streets, was reflected from
the black surface of the river, and surrounded the tall peaked gables of
the narrow houses with a silvery lustre. The rapid tramp of the soldiers
was echoed loudly back from the houses through the silence of the night,
and the vibration of the air, shaken by the beating of the drums, made
the panes rattle.

This time no merry children with paper flags and wooden swords preceded
the warriors, this time no gay girls and proud mothers followed them,
not even an old man, who remembered former days, when he himself bore
arms. As the silent troops reached the neighborhood of Allertssohn's
house, the clock in the church-steeple slowly struck twelve, and
directly after the alarm-bell began to sound from the tower of
Pancratius.

A window in the second story of the fencing-toaster's house was thrown
open, and his wife's face appeared. An anxious married life with her
strange husband had prematurely aged pretty little Eva's countenance,
but the mild moonlight transfigured her faded features. The beat of her
husband's drums was familiar to her, and when she saw him at midnight
marching past to the horrible call of the alarm-bell, a terrible dread
overpowered her and would scarcely allow her to call: "Husband, husband!
What is the matter, Andreas?"

He did not hear, for the roll of the drums, the tramp of the soldiers'
feet on the pavement and the ringing of the alarm-bell drowned her
voice; but he saw her distinctly, and a strange feeling stole over him.
Her face, framed in a white kerchief and illumined by the moonlight,
seemed to him fairer than he had ever seen it since the days of his
wooing, and he felt so youthful and full of chivalrous daring, on his
way to the field of danger, that he drew himself up to his full height
and marched by, keeping most perfect time to the beat of