hlhaas sighed deeply
at this intelligence; he asked whether the horses had had their feed,
and when his men answered in the affirmative, he ordered the whole
troop to mount, and in three hours was before Erlabrunn. While a
distant storm was murmuring in the horizon, he entered the convent yard
with his band, lighted by torches, which he had kindled before the
place. The servant, Waldmann, who met him, told him that he had given
the copy of the mandate, when he saw the abbess and the beadle of the
convent talking in an agitated manner beneath the portal. The latter,
a little old man, with hair as white as snow, darting fierce glances at
Kohlhaas, ordered his armour to be put on, and with a bold voice told
the servants who stood round him to ring the alarm bell, while the
abbess with a silver crucifix in her hand, descended, white as her own
garment, from the landing-place, and with all her maidens, threw
herself before Kohlhaas's horses. Kohlhaas, himself, while Herse and
Sternbald overcame the beadle, who had no sword, and were leading him
off away to the horses as a prisoner, asked her: "Where is Squire von
Tronka?" When, drawing from her girdle a large bunch of keys, she
answered: "At Wittenberg, worthy man," and in a trembling voice, added:
"Fear God, and do no wrong," the horse-dealer, cast back into the hell
of disappointed revenge, turned about his horse, and was on the point
of shouting out: "Set alight!" when a monstrous thunder-bolt fell to
the earth at his feet. Kohlhaas, again turning his horse to her, asked
if she had received his mandate, and when with a weak and scarcely
audible voice, she said: "Only just now, about two hours after my
nephew had departed,"--and Waldmann, on whom Kohlhaas cast suspicious
glances, stammered out a confirmation of the statement, saying, that
the water of the Mulde had been swelled by the rain, and had hindered
him from arriving sooner, he collected himself. A sudden fall of rain,
which extinguished the torches, and rattled on the stones, seemed to
ease the anguish of his wretched heart; he once more turned round,
touching his hat to the lady, and crying out: "Brothers, follow
me,--the Squire is in Wittenberg," clapped spurs to his horse and left
the convent.

At nightfall he put up at an inn on the road, where he had to rest a
day on account of the great fatigue of his horses, and as he plainly
saw, that with a troop of ten men (such was his force now), he could
not a