clamoring against the walls of
Thorn and bringing down to destruction the hateful tyranny of the
Black Duke Casimir?

"What is that?" said I, pointing to a standard of immense size which
drooped from the Red Tower. It had been hanging limp and straight about
the staff, and till now we had not observed it. But as we went toiling up
to the Weiss Thor, and the last links of road lengthened themselves
indefinitely out before us in their own familiar manner, suddenly a waft
of hot wind from the sun-beaten plain of the Wolfmark blew out an immense
black flag, which spread itself, fluttered feebly, and died down again
flat against the pole.

"Nay," said the Doctor, "that I cannot tell. Surely you should know the
customs of your own city better than I!"

For the heat had made the High Chancellor a little snappish, as well
perhaps as the length of the way.

"Never in my time have I seen such a thing float above the Red Tower," I
made answer. "Can it be a flag of pestilence?"

It seemed a likely thing enough. Cities were often made desolate in a few
days by the plague--the people running to the hills, a weird devil's
silence all about the gates. These might well betoken the presence of a
foe to which the army of Plassenburg would seem as a friend.

As we rode under the Arch of the White Gate of Thorn we were summarily
halted to be examined. We gave our names, and the Doctor showed his
letters of authorization from a dozen learned universities. The Black
Hussar who examined our credentials was of a taciturn disposition, and
evidently no scholar, for he studied the parchments intently upsidedown,
and appeared to have an idea that their genuineness was best investigated
by smelling the seals.

"Where are you bound?" he asked.

"To the house of the learned and venerable Bishop of Thorn!" said the
Doctor Schmidt.

So the Hussar, having finally approved of the quality of the
scholastic wax, called a subordinate, and bade him guide us to the
house of Bishop Peter.

In an instant we were in the familiar streets, narrow, sunken, and
indescribably dirty, as they now appeared to me. For I had been
accustomed to the wider, airier spaces, and to the bickering rivulets
which ran down most of the steeper streets of Plassenburg, and which made
it one of the cleanest towns in the world. So that the ancient and
unreformed filth and wretchedness of Thorn appealed to my senses as they
had never done before.

There were evidences too