indeed if that
were the extent of his aim. Heroes, I tell you, barons, princes, gods,
it will make of you.

RAZ. That's pretty well for one bout, truly! But no doubt it is some
neck-breaking piece of business; it will cost a head or so at the least.

SPIEGEL. It wants nothing but courage; as to the headwork, I take that
entirely upon myself. Courage, I say, Schweitzer! Courage, Roller!
Grimm! Razman! Schufterle! Courage!

SCHW. Courage! If that is all, I have courage enough to walk through
hell barefoot.

SCHUFT. And I courage enough to fight the very devil himself under the
open gallows for the rescue of any poor sinner.

SPIEGEL. That's just what it should be! If ye have courage, let any
one of you step forward and say he has still something to lose, and not
everything to gain?

SCHW. Verily, I should have a good deal to lose, if I were to lose all
that I have yet to win!

PAZ. Yes, by Jove! and I much to win, if I could win all that I have
not got to lose.

SCHUFT. Were I to lose what I carry on my back on trust I should at any
rate have nothing to lose on the morrow.

SPIEGEL. Very well then! (He takes his place in the middle of them,
and says in solemn adjuration)--if but a drop of the heroic blood of the
ancient Germans still flow in your veins--come! We will fix our abode
in the Bohemian forests, draw together a band of robbers, and--What are
you gaping at? Has your slender stock of courage oozed out already?

ROLLER. You are not the first rogue by many that has defied the
gallows;--and yet what other choice have we?

SPIEGEL. Choice? You have no choice. Do you want to lie rotting in
the debtor's jail and beat hemp till you are bailed by the last trumpet?
Would you toil with pick-axe and spade for a morsel of dry bread? or
earn a pitiful alms by singing doleful ditties under people's windows?
Or will you be sworn at the drumhead--and then comes the question,
whether anybody would trust your hang-dog visages--and so under the
splenetic humor of some despotic sergeant serve your time of purgatory
in advance? Would you like to run the gauntlet to the beat of the drum?
or be doomed to drag after you, like a galley-slave, the whole iron
store of Vulcan? Behold your choice. You have before you the complete
catalogue of all that you may choose from!

ROLLER. Spiegelberg is not altogether wrong! I, too, have been
concocting plans, but they come much to the same thing. How would it
be, thought I, were we