by the magistrate and his wife was empty. Ample provision also
seemed to have been made to guard the place of healing, for several armed
troopers belonging to the city guard were pacing up and down before he
board fence which surrounded it, and the approach of the late visitors
was heralded by the deep baying of large hounds.

The magistrate was well known here, and the doorkeeper, roused from his
sleep, hastened to light the way for him and his wife with a lantern. In
spite of the planks which had been placed in he courtyard, the task of
crossing it was by no means easy; for the night was intensely dark, and
the foot passed beyond the boards, it plunged into the mire, on which
they floated rather than lay.

At first the barking of the dogs had drowned very other sound, but as
they approached the house thatched with straw, where the wounded men were
nursed, harsh voices, interrupted at times by the angry oaths of some
patient roused from sleep, or the watchman's command to keep quiet,
reached them in a loud uproar.

A narrow passage dimly lighted by a lantern led to the women's quarters,
where Eva had remained. The magistrate entered the men's dormitory to
make an inspection, while his wife, needing no guidance, passed on to the
women, meeting no one on her way except a Sister of Charity and two
men-servants who, under the guidance of a sleepy Dominican monk, were
bearing out the corpse of some one who had just passed away.

Sister Hildegard, who was sitting at the door of the dormitory, half
asleep, started up as Frau Christine crossed the threshold.

The knight's widow, a vigorous matron, whose hair had long been grey,
pointed with the rosary in her hand to the end of the long, dimly lighted
apartment, and said in a low tone: "The sick woman seems to be asleep
now. The prior sent the old Dominican to whom Eva is talking. He is said
to be the most learned and eloquent member of the order. If I am right,
he came here to appeal to your niece's conscience. At least his first
question was for her, and you see how eagerly he is speaking. When yonder
sick woman seemed to be drawing near her end she asked for the sacrament,
which was administered by the Dominican. It was a sorrowful farewell on
account of her children, but the barber thinks we may perhaps save her
yet. Father Benedictus, the old Minorite, who was found on the road and
brought to us, seems, on the other hand, to be dying. We will gladly keep
him in the Beg