as mandate" in
which he warned the country not to offer assistance to Squire Wenzel
Tronka, against whom he was waging just warfare, and, furthermore,
commanded every inhabitant, instead, relatives and friends not
excepted, to surrender him under penalty of death and the inevitable
burning down of everything that might be called property.

This declaration he scattered broadcast in the surrounding country
through travelers and strangers; he even went so far as to give
Waldmann, his servant, a copy of it, with definite instructions to
carry it to Erlabrunn and place it in the hands of Lady Antonia.
Thereupon he had a talk with some of the servants of Tronka Castle who
were dissatisfied with the Squire and, attracted by the prospect of
plunder, wished to enter the horse-dealer's service. He armed them
after the manner of foot-soldiers, with cross-bows and daggers, taught
them how to mount behind the men on horseback, and after he had turned
into money everything that the company had collected and had
distributed it among them, he spent some hours in the gateway of the
castle, resting after his sorry labor.

Toward midday Herse came and confirmed what Kohlhaas' heart, which was
always filled with the most gloomy forebodings, had already told
him--namely, that the Squire was then in the nunnery of Erlabrunn with
the old Lady Antonia Tronka, his aunt. It seemed that, through a door
in the rear wall behind the castle, leading into the open air, he had
escaped down a narrow stone stairway which, protected by a little
roof, ran down to a few boats on the Elbe. At least, Herse reported
that at midnight the Squire in a skiff without rudder or oars had
arrived at a village on the Elbe, to the great astonishment of the
inhabitants who were assembled on account of the fire at Tronka Castle
and that he had gone on toward Erlabrunn in a village cart.

Kohlhaas sighed deeply at this news; he asked whether the horses had
been fed, and when they answered "Yes," he had his men mount, and in
three hours' time he was at the gates of Erlabrunn. Amid the rumbling
of a distant storm on the horizon, he and his troop entered the
courtyard of the convent with torches which they had lighted before
reaching the spot. Just as Waldmann, his servant, came forward to
announce that the mandate had been duly delivered, Kohlhaas saw the
abbess and the chapter-warden step out under the portal of the
nunnery, engaged in agitated conversation. While the c