In doing so her eyes fell upon the courtyard, where, just after the Ave Maria, a motley throng had gathered.  Here, guarded by jailers, stood vagabonds and disreputable men and women, sham blind beggars and cripples, swindlers, and other tatterdemalions, who had been caught in illegal practices or without the beggar’s sign.  In another spot, dark-robed servants of the Council were discussing official and other matters.  Near the “Hole” a little party of soldiers were resting, passing from hand to hand the jug of wine bestowed by the Honourable Council.  The “Red Coat”—­[Executioner]—­was giving orders to his “Life”—­[Executioner’s assistant ("Lion")]—­as they carried across the courtyard a new instrument of torture intended for the room adjoining the Council chamber, where those who refused to make depositions were forced to it.  In a shady corner sat old people, poorly clad women, and pale-faced children, the city poor, who at this hour received food from the kitchen of the Town Hall.  A few priests and monks were going into the wing of the building which contained the “Hole,” with its various cells and the largest chamber of torture, to give the consolations of religion to the prisoners and those tortured by the rack who had not yet been conveyed to the hospital at Schweinau.

The countess’s keen glance wandered from one to another.  When they reached the group of paupers they rested upon a woman with deadly pale, hollow cheeks, pressing a pitifully emaciated infant to her dry breast, and her eyes swiftly filled with tears.

“Here,” she whispered to old Martsche, taking several gold coins from the pocket that hung at her belt, “give these to the poorest ones.  You are sensible.  Divide it so that several will have a share and the money will reach the right hands.  You can take your time.  We need neither you nor Katterle.  Go back to the house.  I will carry your young mistresses to their father and home again.  Where I am you need have no fear that harm will befall them.”

Then she turned again towards the “Hole,” and seeing the people yelling and shouting while awaiting imprisonment, she pointed to them with her whip, saying, “That’s a part of the pack which was set upon you.  You shall hear about it presently.  But now come.”

As she spoke she went before the girls and urged them to step quickly into the large, handsome sedan-chair, around which an unusual number of people had assembled, for she wished to avoid any recognition of the sisters by the curious spectators.  The gilded box, borne between two powerful Brabant horses in such a way that it hung between the tail of the first and the head of the second, would have had room for a fourth occupant.