Herse with some of the
others to obtain intelligence about the direction which the squire had
taken in flight. A rich convent, called Erlabrunn, which was situated
on the banks of the Mulde, and the abbess of which, Antonia von Tronka,
was well known on the spot as a pious and benevolent lady, rendered him
particularly uneasy, for it seemed to him but too probable that the
squire, deprived as he was of every necessary of life, had taken refuge
in this asylum, since the abbess was his aunt, and had educated him in
his earliest years. Kohlhaas being informed of this circumstance,
ascended the castellan's tower, within which he found a room that was
still habitable, and prepared what he called "Kohlhaasisch Mandate," in
which he desired the whole country to give no assistance whatever to
Squire von Tronka, with whom he was engaged in lawful war, and bound
every inhabitant, not excepting his friends and relations, to deliver
up to him the aforesaid squire, under the penalty of life and limb, and
conflagration of all that could be called property. This declaration
he distributed through the country round, by means of travellers and
strangers. To his servant, Waldmann, he gave a copy with the special
charge that it was to be put into the hands of the Lady Antonia at
Erlabrunn. He afterwards gained over some of the Tronkenburg servants,
who were discontented with the squire, and tempted by the prospect of
booty, wished to enter his service. These he armed after the fashion
of infantry with daggers and cross-bars, teaching them to sit behind
the servants on horseback. After having turned into money all that the
troops had raked together, and divided the money among them, he rested
from his sad occupation for some hours, under the gate of the castle.

Herse returned about noon, and confirmed the gloomy suspicions, which
he had already felt in his heart, namely, that the squire was in the
convent at Erlabrunn, with his aunt, the lady Antonia von Tronka. He
had, it appeared, slipped through a door at the back of the castle,
which led into the open air, and gone down a narrow flight of stone
steps, which, under a little roof, went down to some boats in the Elbe.
At least Herse told him that about midnight he reached a village on the
Elbe in a boat without a rudder, to the astonishment of the people, who
were collected together on account of the fire at the Tronkenburg, and
that he had proceeded to Erlabrunn in a waggon. Ko