d man, Master Eberhard Windecke, who was well-read in the history
of all the world--he had come to Nuremberg as a commissioner of finance
from his Majesty, and Uncle Tucher had brought him forth to the
Forest--he, I say, instructed us that the forefather of this King Janus
of Cyprus had seized upon the crown of Jerusalem at the time of the
crusades, during the lifetime of the mighty Sultan Saladin, by poison and
perjury, and had then bartered it with the English monarch Richard Coeur
de lion, in exchange for the Kingdom of Cyprus. That ancestor of King
Janus was by name Guy de Lusignan, and the sins of the fathers, so Master
Windecke set forth with flowers of eloquence, were ever visited on the
children, unto the third and fourth generation.

I, like most of the assembled company, had hearkened with due respect to
this discourse; yet had I not failed to note with what restless eyes my
aunt watched the two men when, after hardly staying their hunger and
thirst, they forthwith quitted the hall to tend the sick man; she
truly--as I would likewise--would rather have heard some present tidings
than this record of sins of the Lusignans dead and gone. Presently the
two men came back to their seats, and when Master Windecke, who, in
speaking, had forgotten to eat, fell to with double good will, Uncle
Conrad gravely bid Kubbeling to out with what he had to say; and yet the
man, who was lifting the leg of a black-cock to his mouth, would reply no
more than a rough, "All in good time, my lord."

Thus we had to wait; nor was it till the Brunswicker had cracked his last
nut with his strong teeth, and the evening cup had been brought round,
that he broke silence and told us in short, halting sentences how he had
sailed from Venice to Alexandria in the land of Egypt, and all that had
befallen his falcons. Then he stopped, as one who has ended his tale, and
Uhlwurm said in a deep voice, and with a sweep of his hand as though to
clear the crumbs from the table "Gone!"--And that "Gone" was well-nigh
the only word that ever I heard from the lips of that strange old man. As
he went on with his tale Kubbeling made free with the wine, and albeit it
had no more effect on him than clear water, still meseemed he talked on
for his own easement; only when he told how and where he had vainly
sought the banished Gotz he looked grievously at my aunt's face. And
Kunz, who had crossed the sea in the same ship with him, had helped him
in that search.