go to the gold sequin, and thus we have-let me
reckon--the old trader has not forgotten his skill on his sick-bed--we
have one thousand eight hundred and forty and six sequins; and that is a
vast ransom still such as is never paid but for lords of the highest
degree. Four and twenty thousand sequins!" And again he laughed aloud.
"It is easily spoken, children, but you cannot even guess what it would
mean. Believe me when I tell you that many a well-to-do merchant in
Nuremberg, who is at the head of a fine trade, would be at his wits' end
if he were desired to pay down half of your four and twenty thousand
sequins in hard coin!"

Then I took up my parable and told him how Eppelein had stamped the sum
on his mind, and that he for certain was in the right, both as to the sum
and as to the Venice sequins, forasmuch as that Herdegen, to the end that
he might know it rightly, had told him that they should be ducats such as
he had three in a red stuff wrapper, and Kunz and I likewise each two, in
our money-boxes as christening-gifts.

Now while I thus spoke the old man was sorely troubled, and his wax-white
face turned paler at each word. He raised himself up, leaning on the arms
of the great chair, so high that we were filled with amazement, and he
gazed about him with his glassy eyes and then said, still holding himself
up: "That, that. . . . And yesterday, only yesterday. . . . The captive
himself. . . . Four and twenty thousand sequins, do you say? . . . and I
--oh, what were my words? . . . But what old Im Hoff promises that he
will do. . . . And yet. . . . If you maids had but been duteous children,
if you had but come to me first, as trustful daughters. . . . Only
yesterday I might--Yes, perchance I might. . . ." And then he stormed
forth: "But who is there indeed to care for me? Who ever comes nigh me
with true love and honest trustfulness? Not one, no, not one!. . . .
Ursula--the lad whom from an infant--and you--both of you, what have you
done? . . . Yesterday, only yesterday! . . . But to-day. . . . Four and
twenty thousand sequins!" His arms on a sudden failed him, and he sank
back in a deep swoon, his colorless face drooping on his shoulder. Now,
while we did all in our power to revive him, and while one serving-man
ran for the leech and another for the friar, meseemed that the old man's
left side was strangely stiff and numb; yet the low flame of his feeble
life was still burning.

Howbeit, when Master Ulseniu