unless you override my resolution, I have come to the conclusion that if any of us are fated to die, the penalty shall be dealt by some other hand than mine.  The twelve who lie here are scarcely less guilty than the six now under sentence, and I propose, therefore, to put ashore on the east bank Kurzbold and Gensbein, one a rogue, the other a fool.  The sixteen who remain have so definitely proven themselves to be simpletons that I trust they will not resent my calling them such.  If however, they abandon all claim to the comradeship that has been so much prated about, swearing by the Three Kings of Cologne faithfully to follow me, and obey my every word without cavil or argument, I will pardon them, but the first man who rebels will show that my clemency has been misplaced, and I can assure them that it shall not be exercised again.  Captain, your sailors are familiar with knotted ropes.  Bid them release all these men except the six condemned.”

The boatmen, with great celerity, freed the prostrate captives from their bonds, but some of the mutineers had been so cruelly used in the cudgeling that it was necessary to assist them to their feet.  The early summer daybreak was at hand, its approach heralded by the perceptible diluting of the darkness that surrounded them, and a ghastly, pallid grayness began to overspread the surface of the broad river.  Down the stream to the west the towers of Bacharach could be faintly distinguished, looking like a dream city, the lower gloom of which was picked out here and there by points of light, each betokening an early riser.

It was a deeply dejected, silent group that stood in this weird half-light, awaiting the development of Roland’s mind regarding them; he, the youngest of their company, quiet, unemotional, whose dominion no one now thought of disputing.

“Captain,” he continued, “steer for the eastern shore.  I know that Bacharach is the greatest wine mart on the Rhine, and well sustains the reputation of the drunken god for whom it is named, but we will nevertheless avoid it.  There is a long island opposite the town, but a little farther down.  I dare say you know it well.  Place that island between us and Bacharach, and tie up to the mainland, out of view from the stronghold of Bacchus.  He is a misleading god, with whom we shall hold no further commerce.

“Now, Joseph Greusel, and Gottlieb Ebearhard, do you two administer the oath of the Three Kings to these twelve men; but before doing so, give each one his choice, permitting him to say whether he will follow Kurzbold on the land or obey me on the water.”

Here Kurzbold broke out again in trembling anger: 

“Your pretended fairness is a sham, and your bogus option a piece of your own sneaking dishonesty.  What chance have we townsmen, put ashore, penniless, in an unknown wilderness, far from any human habitation, knowing nothing of the way back to Frankfort?  Your fraudulent clemency rescues us from drowning merely to doom us to starvation.”