g torches following him--Kohlhaas was
just returning from the place of execution, while the people on both
sides timidly made way for him. At that moment the two men, with their
swords under their arms, walked, in a way that could not fail to
excite his surprise, around the pillar to which the placard was
attached.

When Kohlhaas, sunk in thought and with his hands folded behind his
back, came under the portal, he raised his eyes and started back in
surprise, and as the two men at sight of him drew back respectfully,
he advanced with rapid steps to the pillar, watching them
absent-mindedly. But who can describe the storm of emotion in his soul
when he beheld there the paper accusing him of injustice, signed by
the most beloved and honored name he knew--the name of Martin Luther!
A dark flush spread over his face; taking off his helmet he read the
document through twice from beginning to end, then walked back among
his men with irresolute glances as though he were about to speak, yet
said nothing. He unfastened the paper from the pillar, read it through
once again, and cried, "Waldmann! have my horse saddled!"--then,
"Sternbald, follow me into the castle!" and with that he disappeared.
It had needed but these few words of that godly man to disarm him
suddenly in the midst of all the dire destruction that he was
plotting.

He threw on the disguise of a Thuringian farmer and told Sternbald
that a matter of the greatest importance obliged him to go to
Wittenberg. In the presence of some of his most trustworthy men he
turned over to Sternbald the command of the band remaining in Luetzen,
and with the assurance that he would be back in three days, during
which time no attack was to be feared, he departed for Wittenberg. He
put up at an inn under an assumed name, and at nightfall, wrapped in
his cloak and provided with a brace of pistols which he had taken at
the sack of Tronka Castle, entered Luther's room. When Luther, who
was sitting at his desk with a mass of books and papers before him,
saw the extraordinary stranger enter his room and bolt the door behind
him, he asked who he was and what he wanted. The man, who was holding
his hat respectfully in his hand, had no sooner, with a diffident
presentiment of the terror that he would cause, made answer that he
was Michael Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer, than Luther cried out, "Stand
far back from me!" and rising from the desk added, as he hurried
toward a bell, "Your breath is