to your heels and fly!"

And she clapped her hands as if she were driving hens off a garden-bed;
Katharina had no alternative but to obey.

Martina then felt for her purse, and when she had found it she added
confidently:

"Thank God! I can talk to these villains! This is a language," and
she clinked the gold pieces, intelligible to all. "Come, where are the
rascals?"

The universal tongue had the desired effect. The chief of the guard
allowed it to persuade him to convey Paula to prison in the chariot,
and to promise that she should find decent accommodation there, while he
also granted old Betta the leave she insisted on with floods of tears,
to share the girl's captivity.

Paula maintained her dignity and composure under this unexpected shock.
Only when it came to taking leave of Pulcheria and Mary, who clung to
her in frantic grief and begged to go with her and Betta to prison, she
could not restrain her tears.

The scribe had informed her that she was charged dy Bishop Plotinus with
having plotted the escape and flight of the nuns, and Joanna's knees
trembled under her when Paula whispered in her ear:

"Beware of Katharina! No one else could have betrayed us; if she
has also revealed what Rufinus did for the sisters we must deny it,
positively and unflinchingly. Fear nothing: they will get not a word
out of me." Then she added aloud: "I need not beg you to remember me
lovingly; thanks to you both--the warmest, deepest thanks for all....
You, Pul...." And she clasped the mother and daughter to her bosom,
while Mary, clinging to her, hid her little face in her skirts, weeping
bitterly.... "You, Dame Joanna, took me in, a forlorn creature, and made
me happy till Fate fell on us all--you know, ah! you know too well.--The
kindness you have shown to me show now to my little Mary. And there
is one thing more--here comes the interpreter again!--A moment yet, I
beg!--If the messenger should return and bring news of my father or, my
God! my God!--my father himself, let me know, or bring him to me!--Or,
if I am dead by the time he comes, tell him that to find him, to see him
once more, was my heart's dearest wish. And beg my father," she breathed
the words into Joanna's ear, "to love Orion as a son. And tell them both
that I loved them to the last, deeply, perfectly, beyond words!" Then
she added aloud as: she kissed each on her eyes and lips: "I love you
and shall always love you--you, Joanna, and you, my Pulcheria,