rd----"

"Certainly not, little brother," interrupted the court fool, Eyebolt,
"but for that very reason you must open the Eysvogel's cage as quickly as
possible and let him fly hither, for on the ride to the beekeeper's you
crossed in your own seven-foot tall body the limits of this good city,
whose length does not greatly surpass it--your imperial person, I mean.
So you as certainly turned your back upon it as you stand in front of
things which lie behind you. And as an emperor's word cannot have as much
added or subtracted as a fly carries off on its tail, if it has one, you,
little brother, are obliged and bound to have the strange monster, which
is at once a wolf and a bird, immediately released and summoned hither."

"Not amiss," laughed the Emperor, "if the boundaries of Nuremberg saw our
back for even so brief a space as it needs to make a wise man a fool.

"We will follow your counsel, Eyebolt.--Herr Pfinzing, tell young
Eysvogel that the Emperor's pardon has ended his punishment. The breach
of the country's peace may be forgiven the man who so heroically aided
the battle for peace."

Then turning to Meister Gottlieb, the protonotary, he whispered so low
that he alone could hear the command, that he should commit to paper a
form of words which would give the bond between Heinz Schorlin and Eva
Ortlieb sufficient legal power to resist both secular authority and that
of the Dominicans and Sisters of St. Clare.

During this conference court etiquette had prevented the company from
exchanging any remarks. Whatever one person might desire to say to
another he was forced to entrust to the mute language of the eyes, and a
sportive impulse induced Emperor Rudolph to maintain the spell which held
apart those who were most strongly attracted to each other.

Meantime, whilst he was talking with the protonotary, the bolder guests
ventured to move about more freely, and of them all Cordula imposed the
least restraint upon herself.

Ere Heinz had found time to address a word to Eva or to greet his mother
she glided swiftly to his side and, with an angry expression on her face,
whispered: "If Heaven bestowed the greatest happiness upon the most
deserving, you must be the most favoured of mortals, for a more exquisite
masterpiece than your future wife--I know her--was never created. But now
open your ears and follow my advice: Do not reveal the state of your
heart until you have left the castle so far behind that you are