now-white tails in your father's stable, and the
old servant Enrique. There wasn't a longer nose than his in all Castile!
Once, when I was in Burgos, I saw a queer, longish shadow coming round a
street corner, and two minutes after, first a nose and then old Enrique
appeared."

"Yes, yes," replied Ulrich, guessing the lansquenet's purpose. "But it
has grown late while we've been gossiping; let us go!"

The woman at the table had not heard the whispers exchanged between the
two men; but she guessed the object of the lansquenet's loud words. As
the latter slowly rose, she laid the child in the basket, drew a long
breath, pressed her fingers tightly upon her eyes for a short time, and
then went directly up to her son.

Florette did not know herself, whether she owed the name of sibyl to her
skill in telling fortunes by cards, or to her wise counsel. Twelve years
before, while still sharing the tent of the Walloon captain Grandgagnage,
it had been given her, she could not say how or by whom. The
fortune-telling she had learned from a sea-captain's widow, with whom she
had lodged a long time.

When her voice grew sharp and weaker, in order to retain consideration
and make herself important, she devoted herself to predicting the future;
her versatile mind, her ambition, and the knowledge of human-nature
gained in the camp and during her wanderings from land to land, aided her
to acquire remarkable skill in this strange pursuit.

Officers of the highest rank had sat opposite to her cards, listening to
her oracular sayings, and Zorrillo, the man who had now been her lover
for ten years, owed it to her influence, that he did not lose his
position as quartermaster after the last mutiny.

Hans Eitelfritz had heard of her skill and when, as he was leaving, she
approached and offered to question the cards for him, he would not allow
Ulrich to prevent him from casting a glance into the future.

On the whole, what was predicted to him sounded favorable, but the
prophetess did not keep entirely to the point, for in turning the cards
she found much to say to Ulrich, and once, pointing to the red and green
knaves, remarked thoughtfully: "That is you, Navarrete; that is this
gentleman. You must have met each other on some Christmas day, and not
here, but in Germany; if I see rightly, in Swabia."

She had just overheard all this.

But a shudder ran through Ulrich's frame when he heard it, and this
woman, whose questioning glance