hlhaas,
and in case money would not suffice, as probably it would not, to offer
him in a prudently managed discourse, life and liberty as the price of
the slip; nay, if he insisted upon it, to supply him at once, though
cautiously, with horses, people, and money, to assist him in escaping
from the hands of the Brandenburg troopers who escorted him. The page,
having obtained from the elector a written authority in his own hand,
set off with some attendants, and not allowing his horses any breathing
time, he had the good luck to overtake Kohlhaas at a village on the
border, where, with the Knight von Malzahn and his five children, he
was partaking of a dinner, that was spread before the door of a house
in the open air. The Knight von Malzahn, to whom the page introduced
himself as a foreigner, who wished to see the remarkable man on his
journey, even anticipated his wishes, as he compelled him to sit down
to the meal, at the same time introducing him to Kohlhaas. As the
knight had affairs to mind, which caused him to absent himself every
now and then, and the troopers were dining at a table on the other side
of the house, the page soon found an opportunity of telling the
horse-dealer who he was, and explaining the particular object of his
mission.

The horse-dealer, who had already learned the name and rank of the
person who had fainted in the farm-house at Dahme at the sight of the
case, and who wanted nothing more to complete the astonishment which
the discovery had caused, than an insight into the secrets of the case,
which for many reasons he had determined not to open out of mere
curiosity,--the horse-dealer, we say, mindful of the unhandsome and
unprincely treatment which he had experienced at Dresden, in spite of
his readiness to make every possible sacrifice, declared that he
intended to keep the case. To the question of the page, what could
induce him to utter so singular a refusal, when nothing less than life
and liberty was offered him, Kohlhaas replied:

"Sir, if your sovereign came here in person and said to me, 'I will
destroy myself with the troop of those who help to wield the sceptre;'
although such destruction is the dearest wish of my soul--I would still
refuse him the case, which is even more valuable to him than existence,
and would say, 'to the scaffold you can bring me, but I can injure you,
and I will.'" And immediately, with death in his face, he called for
one of the troopers, ordering him