“So said the man who jumped in to save somebody from drowning,” replied Fran Christine laughing:  “It’s lucky it happened, because I was just going to take a bath!” But it pleased her to have her husband’s companionship, and she did not approach her horse until he had examined the saddle-girth and the bridle with the utmost care.

Before putting her foot in the stirrup, she told the old housekeeper to take Countess von Montfort to the hospital and commend her to the special care of Sister Hildegard.  She would call for Cordula and Eva on her return from the city; but they must not wait for her should the strength of either fail.  She had ordered a sedan-chair to be kept ready for her niece at the hospital.  A second one would be at the countess’s disposal.

“That’s what I call foresight!” cried the magistrate laughing.  “Only, my dear countess, see that our little saint doesn’t attempt anything too hard.  Her pious heart would run her little head against the wall if matters came to that and, like the noble Moorish steeds, she would drop dead in her tracks rather than stop.  Such a delicate creature is like a lute.  When the key is raised higher and higher the string snaps, and we want to avoid that.  With you, my young heroine——­”

“There is no danger of that kind,” Cordula gaily protested.  “This instrument is provided with metal strings; the tone is neither sweet nor musical, but they are durable.”

“Good, firm material, such as I like,” the magistrate declared.  Then he helped his wife mount her horse, placed the bridle in her left hand, looked at the saddle-girth again, and, spite of his corpulence, swung himself nimbly enough on his strong steed.  Then, with Frau Christine, he trotted after the torch-bearers towards the city.

CHAPTER XIII.

The drawbridge before the watch-tower was promptly lowered for the imperial magistrate and his wife.  He would have dissuaded Frau Chris the from the ride and come alone, had not experience taught him that Ernst Ortlieb was more ready to listen to her than to him.  But they came too late; just before sunset Herr Ernst had availed himself of the visit of the imperial forester, Waldstromer, to give him the petition to convey to the protonotary, by whom it was to reach the Emperor.  Nor did he regret this decision, but insisted that his duty as a father and a Nuremberg “Honourable” would not permit the wrong done to his child and his household by a foreign knight to pass unpunished.

True, Fran Christine exerted all her powers of persuasion to change his opinion, and her husband valiantly supported her, but they accomplished nothing except to gain the prisoner’s consent that if the paper had not yet reached the Emperor the protonotary might defer its presentation until he was asked for it.