glance at Ulrich from his bright eyes, he
whispered: "If necessary, I too can be silent. You man without a
country! You soldier of fortune! A Swabian the commander of these
stiffnecked braggarts. Now see how I'll help you."

"What do you mean to do?" asked Ulrich; but Hans Eitelfritz had already
raised the huge goblet, banging it down again so violently that the
table shook. Then he struck the top with his clenched fist, and when
the Spaniards fixed their eyes on him, shouted in their language: "Yes,
indeed, it was delightful in those days, Caballero Navarrete. Your
uncle, the noble Conde in what's its name, that place in Castile, you
know, and the Condesa and Condesilla. Splendid people! Do you remember
the coal-black horses with snow-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 E