red florins in purchasing it; as, to use his own
emphatic words, "it was not every day one knew where to find the weapon
to bring down a giant."

As Hans, encumbered by his various adjuncts, trotted along beside his
stalwart companion, he soon discovered that all his conversational
ability to exert which cost him so dearly was utterly unattended to;
he fell into a moody silence, and thus they journeyed for miles of way
without interchanging a word. At last they came in sight of the little
village of Hernitz Kretschen, whence by a by road Frank was to reach
the regular line that leads through the Hohlen Thai to the Lake of
Constance, and where they were to part.

"I feel as though I could almost go all the way with you," said Hans, as
they stopped to gaze upon the little valley where lay the village, and
beyond which stretched a deep forest of dark pine-trees, traversed by a
single road.

"Nay, Hans," said Frank, smiling, as for the first time he beheld the
strange figure beside him; "you must go back to your pleasant little
village and live happily, to do many a kindness to others, as you have
done to me to-day!"

"I would like to take service with the Empress myself," said Hans, "if
it were for some good and great cause, like the defence of the Church
against the Turks, or the extermination of the race of dragons that
infest the Lower Danube."

"But you forget, Hans, it is an Emperor, rules over Austria now," said
Frank, preferring to offer a correction to the less startling of his
hallucinations.

"No, no, Master Frank, they have not deposed the good Maria Teresa,
they would never do that. I saw her picture over the doorway of the
Burgermeister the last time I went to visit my mother in the Bregertzer
Wald, and by the same token her crown and sceptre were just newly gilt,
a thing they would not have done if she were not on the throne."

"What if she were dead, and her son too?" said Frank; but his words were
scarce uttered when he regretted to have said them, so striking was the
change that came over the dwarf's features.

"If that were indeed true, Heaven have mercy on us!" exclaimed he,
piously. "Old Frederick will have but little pity for good Catholics!
But no, Master Frank, this cannot be. The last time I received soldiers
from Nuremberg they wore the same uniforms as ever, and the 'Moriamur
pro Rege nostro, M. T.' was in gold letters on every banner as before."

Frank was in no humor to disturb so inn