ly, my
dear countess, see that our little saint doesn't attempt anything too
hard. Her pious heart would run her little head against the wall if
matters came to that and, like the noble Moorish steeds, she would drop
dead in her tracks rather than stop. Such a delicate creature is like a
lute. When the key is raised higher and higher the string snaps, and we
want to avoid that. With you, my young heroine----"

"There is no danger of that kind," Cordula gaily protested. "This
instrument is provided with metal strings; the tone is neither sweet nor
musical, but they are durable."

"Good, firm material, such as I like," the magistrate declared. Then he
helped his wife mount her horse, placed the bridle in her left hand,
looked at the saddle-girth again, and, spite of his corpulence, swung
himself nimbly enough on his strong steed. Then, with Frau Christine, he
trotted after the torch-bearers towards the city.

CHAPTER XIII.

The drawbridge before the watch-tower was promptly lowered for the
imperial magistrate and his wife. He would have dissuaded Frau Chris the
from the ride and come alone, had not experience taught him that Ernst
Ortlieb was more ready to listen to her than to him. But they came too
late; just before sunset Herr Ernst had availed himself of the visit of
the imperial forester, Waldstromer, to give him the petition to convey to
the protonotary, by whom it was to reach the Emperor. Nor did he regret
this decision, but insisted that his duty as a father and a Nuremberg
"Honourable" would not permit the wrong done to his child and his
household by a foreign knight to pass unpunished.

True, Fran Christine exerted all her powers of persuasion to change his
opinion, and her husband valiantly supported her, but they accomplished
nothing except to gain the prisoner's consent that if the paper had not
yet reached the Emperor the protonotary might defer its presentation
until he was asked for it.

Herr Ernst had made this concession after the magistrate's representation
that Sir Heinz Schorlin had been subjected to an experience which had
stirred the inmost depths of his soul, and soon after had been
unexpectedly sent in pursuit of the Siebenburgs. Hence he had found no
time to speak to the father. If he persisted in his intention of entering
a monastery, the petition would be purposeless. If it proved that he was
merely trifling with Eva, there would be time enough to call upon the
Emperor to punish h