unkenly]
One thousand guilders to a 'masterless dog'!
[Others laugh too, pass by, with pity and derision for the PIPER,
and echoes of 'MASTERLESS DOG!' Exeunt WOMEN and MEN to the
Minster. Only the children are left, dancing round the motionless
figure of the PIPER.

CHILDREN
Oh, pipe again! Oh, pipe and make us dance!
Oh, pipe and make us run away from school!
Oh, pipe and make believe we are the mice!

[He looks down at them. He looks up at the houses. Then he signs
to them, with his finger on his lips; and begins, very softly, to
pipe the Kinder-spell. The old CLAUS and URSULA in the windows
seem to doze.

The children stop first, and look at him, fascinated; then
they laugh, drowsily, and creep closer,--JAN always near.
They crowd around him. He pipes louder, moving backwards,
slowly, with magical gestures, towards the little by-streets
and the closed doors. The doors open, everywhere.

Out come the children: little ones in night gowns; bigger ones,
with playthings, toy animals, dolls. He pipes, gayer and louder.
They pour in, right and left. Motion and music fill the air.
The PIPER lifts JAN to his shoulder (dropping the little crutch)
and marches off, up the street at the rear, piping, in the midst
of them all.

Last, out of the Minster come tumbling two little acolytes in
red, and after them, PETER the Sacristan. He trips over them in
his amazement and terror; and they are gone after the vanishing
children before the church-people come out.

The old folks lean from their windows.

OLD URSULA
The bell, the bell! the church bell! They're bewitched!

[Peter rushes to the bell-rope and pulls it. The bell sounds
heavily. Reenter, from the church, the citizens by twos and
threes and scores.

OLD URSULA
I told ye all,--I told ye!--Devils' bargains!
[The bell]
[KURT, JACOBUS, and the others appear.]

KURT
Peter the Sacristan! Give by the bell.
What means this clangor?

PETER the Sacristan
They're bewitched! bewitched!
[Still pulling and shouting.]

URSULA
They're gone!

KURT
Thy wits!

OLD CLAUS
They're gone--they're gone--they're gone!

PETER the Sacristan
The children!

URSULA
--With the Piper! They're bewitched!
I told ye so.

OLD CLAUS
--I saw it with these eyes!
He piped away the children.

[Horror in the crowd. They bring out lanterns and candles.
VERONIKA holds up the forgotten crutch'

VERONIKA
Jan--my Jan!

KURT
[to her]
Thy boy! But mine, m