Lydia will not fly with
me without her father, and as all the plans of the Castle are in my
hands, it will be easier for me to rescue father and daughter from the
great Tower, than Lydia alone from the Witches' Tower." The little
woman seemed apparently to agree eagerly with these views, in order to
calm the maddened man. Her hope was, that the Kurfuerst would set Lydia
free the following day, and the conviction that the prudent Erastus
would never undertake an attempt at flight calmed her as to that
matter. So she dismissed Felix with the best wishes and rejoiced when
she finally succeeded in getting rid of the lunatic. She then with
bitter tears raised up the body of her many colored pet and kissed it.
"How much I must love Lydia," she said, "that I did not scratch out the
eyes of this wicked man. But he won't get off so easily." And she
carefully dried up the blood of the bird with a fine cloth, and weeping
laid the relic in an artistically carved box.

CHAPTER VIII.

The following morning a stormy scene took place in the private study of
the Kurfuerst in the new court. The Magistrate Hartmann Hartmanni was
seeking refuge behind a leather backed arm chair to protect himself
from the wrath of the Count of the Palatinate who pressed forward
towards him, upbraiding him with flaming countenance.

"You shall set them all free," cried the thick set Kurfuerst, "all. Do
you understand?"

"If Your Gracious Highness would only remember," replied the obdurate
Magistrate, "how great a calamity has come over the Palatinate through
this pestilence. And now should those who have been proved in a certain
measure to have introduced this pestilence through their devilish arts
be set free, among their fellow creatures, the first who would fall
victims to their wrath would be Your Highness' faithful servants who
considered it necessary to oppose these sorceresses."

"Who has told you that this pestilence is the work of witchcraft?"
replied the Kurfuerst. "Only yesterday the Church Council reported to me
in a long document--there it lies--that it was plain to all the world,
that as a punishment for the blasphemies of the Arians in Ladenburg and
Heidelberg the plague had broken out in Petersthal and Schoenau, to-day
witches and magicians are accused of being responsible for all this
misery. Whom shall I believe, you or Olevianus?"

Herr Hartmann Hartmanni assumed a wise and deliberative expressio