hanged my mind," replied Roland, without further explanation.

At first Kurzbold determined to set the pace. He would show the company
he was not drunk, and tax them to follow him, but, his stout legs
proving unable to carry out this excellent resolution, he gradually fell
to the rear. As the sun rose higher, and grew hotter, the pace began to
tell on him, and he accepted without protest the support of two comrades
who had been drinking with him at Hochst. He retrograded into a
condition of pessimistic dejection as the enthusiasm of the wine
evaporated. A little later he wished to lie down by the roadside and
allow a cruel and unappreciative world to pass on its own way, but his
comrades encouraged him to further efforts, and in some manner they
succeeded in dragging him along at the tail of the procession.

As they approached the village of Zeilsheim, Roland requested his
lieutenant to inform the marchers that there would be no halt until
_mittagessen_.

Zeilsheim is rather more than a league from Hochst, and Kurzbold allowed
himself to wake up sufficiently to maintain that the distance earned
another drink, but his supporters dragged him on with difficulty past
those houses which displayed a bush over the door. At the larger town of
Hofheim, five leagues from Frankfort, the same command was passed down
the ranks, and at this there was some grumbling, for the day had become
very hot, and the way was exceedingly trying, up hill and down dale.

Well set up as these city lads were, walking had never been their
accustomed exercise. The interesting Taunus mountains, which to-day
constitute an exercise ground full of delights to the pedestrian,
forming, as they do, practically a suburb of Frankfort, were at that
time an unexplored wilderness, whose forests were infested by roving
brigands, where no man ventured except at the risk of an untimely grave.
The mediaeval townsman rarely trusted himself very far outside the city
gates, and our enterprising marauders, whom to outward view seemed
stalwart enough to stand great fatigue, proved so soft under the hot sun
along the shadeless road that by the time they reached Breckenheim,
barely six leagues from Frankfort, there was a mopping of brows and a
general feeling that the limit of endurance had been reached.

At Breckenheim Roland called a halt for midday refreshment, and he was
compelled to wait nearly half an hour until the last straggler of his
woebegone crew limped from