turn back, when Els saw the man who brought to her father the summons
to the meetings of the Council, and requested him to accompany them
through the throng to the courtyard; but amidst the uproar of shouts and
cries he misunderstood her, and supposing that she wished to witness the
spectacle which had attracted so many, forced a way for the sisters into
the very front rank.

The person who had just been bound in this place of shame was the
barber's widow from the Kotgasse, who had already been here once for
giving lovers an opportunity for secret meetings, and to whom Katterle
had fled for shelter. Bowed by the weight of the stone which had been
hung around her neck, the woman, with outstretched head, looked furiously
around the circle of her tormentors like a wild beast crouched to spring,
and scarcely had the messenger brought the sisters and their servants to
a place near her when, recognising Katterle, she shrieked shrilly to the
crowd that there were the right ones, the dainty folk who, if they did
not belong to a rich family, would be put in the place where, in spite of
the Riese over their faces, with which they mourned for their lost good
name, they had more reason to be than she, who was only the lowly widow
of a barber.

Overwhelmed with horror the girls pressed on, and at Eva's terrified
exclamation, "Let us, O let us go!" the man did his best. But they made
slow progress through the crowd, whose yells, hisses, and catcalls
pursued them to the entrance of the neighbouring Town Hall.

Here the guard, with crossed halberds, kept back the people who were
crowding after the insulted girls, and it was fortunate, for Eva's feet
refused to carry her farther, and her older sister's strength to support
her failed.

Sighing deeply, Els led her to a bench which stood between two pillars,
and then ordered old Martsche, and Katterle, who was trembling in every
limb, to watch Eva till her return.

Before they went on, her sister must have some rest, and Martin Schedel,
the old Clerk of the Council, was the man with whom to obtain it.

She went in search of him as fast as her feet would bear her, and by a
lucky accident met the kind old man, whom she had known from childhood,
on the stairs leading to the Council chamber and the upper offices.

Ernst Ortlieb's unhappy deed, and the story of the base calumnies in
circulation about the unfortunate man's daughters, which he had just
heard from Herr Pfinzing, had filled