called to account as robbers.  This would certainly lead the Swiss and others to investigate his own past, and the Pursuivant at Arms excluded from joust and tourney whoever “injured trade or merchant.”  What would not his enemy, who was in such high favour with the Emperor, do to compass his destruction?  But—­and at the thought he uttered a low imprecation—­how could he ride to the joust if his father-in-law closed his strong box which, moreover, was said to be empty?  If the old man was forced to declare himself bankrupt Siebenburg’s creditors would instantly seize his splendid chargers and costly suits of armour, scarcely one half of which were paid for.  How much money he needed as security in case of defeat!  His sole property was debts.  Yet the thought seemed like an illumination—­his wife’s valuable old jewels could probably still be saved, and she might be induced to give him part of the ornaments for the tournament.  He need only make her understand that his honour and that of the twins were at stake.  Would that Heaven might spare his boys such hours of anxiety and self-accusation!

But what was this?  Was he deluding himself?  Did his over-excited imagination make him hear a death knell pealing for his honour and his hopes, which must be borne to their grave?  Yet no!  All the citizens and peasants, men and women, great and small, who thronged the salt market, which he had just entered, raised their heads to listen with him; for from every steeple at once rang the mournful death knell which announced to the city the decease of an “honourable” member of the Council, a secular or ecclesiastical prince.  The mourning banner was already waving on the roof of the Town Hall, towards which he turned.  Men in the service of the city were hoisting other black flags upon the almshouse, and now the Hegelein—­[Proclaimer of decrees]—­in mourning garments, mounted on a steed caparisoned with crepe, came riding by at the head of other horsemen clad in sable, proclaiming to the throng that Hartmann, the Emperor Rudolph’s promising son, had found an untimely end.  The noble youth was drowned while bathing in the Rhine.

It seemed as if a frost had blighted a blooming garden.  The gay bustle in the market place was paralysed.  The loud sobs of many women blended with exclamations of grief and pity from bearded lips which had just been merrily bargaining for salt and fish, meat and game.  Messengers with crepe on their hats or caps forced a passage through the throng, and a train of German knights, priests, and monks passed with bowed heads, bearing candles in their hands, between the Town Hail and St. Sebald’s Church towards the corn magazine and the citadel.

Meanwhile dark clouds were spreading slowly over the bright-blue vault of the June sky.  A flock of rooks hovered around the Town Hall, and then flew, with loud cries, towards the castle.