There was a hideous, confused, ear-splitting din, which threatened serious consequences, for some of the women, leaving their straw beds, hastened towards the door or surrounded Frau Christine and Eva with uplifted fists and threatening nails.

The warning voices of the matrons, to whose aid the Beguines had hastened, were drowned by the uproar, but the danger which specially threatened Eva, whom the barber’s widow pointed out to her neighbour who had stolen a child to train it to beg, was soon ended, for the wild cries had reached the men’s building, from which Herr Berthold Pfinzing came hurrying in, accompanied by the superintendent, his assistants, and several monks.

If the women reproached the magistrate, who in reality was a lenient judge, with being a cruel tyrant, they were now to learn that he certainly did not lack uncompromising energy.  The unpleasant position in which he found his wife and his beloved godchild did not incline him to gentleness.  He would have liked to have tied the hands of all these women, most of whom had forfeited the consideration due their sex.  This was really done to the most unruly, while the barber’s widow was carried to the prison-chamber, which the hospital did not lack.

After quiet was at last restored and Frau Christine had told her husband that she had been attacked while on her way to show him a delightful scene in the midst of all this terrible misery, he angrily exclaimed:  “A magnificent picture!  Balm for the eyes and ears of your own brother’s virginal daughter!  The saints be praised that you both escaped so easily.  Can there be in the worst hell anything more horrible than what has just been witnessed here?  Really, where a Countess Cordula cannot endure——­”

Here Frau Christine soothingly interrupted her irate husband, and so great was her influence over him, that his tone sounded like friendly encouragement as he added:  “You wanted to show me something special, but I was detained over there.  Though it was late, I wanted to see the worthy fellow again.  What a man he is!  I mean Sir Heinz Schorlin’s squire.”

“Poor Biberli?” asked Eva eagerly; and there was a faint tone of reproach in her voice as she continued, “You promised to look after him.”

“So I did, child,” the magistrate protested.  “But justice must take its course, and the rack is part of the examination by torture.  He might easily have lost his tongue, and if his master doesn’t return soon and another accuser should appear, who knows what will happen!”

“But that must not, shall not be!” cried Eva, the old defiance echoing imperiously in her voice.  “Heinz Schorlin—­you said so yourself—­would not plead in vain for mercy to the Emperor; and before I will see the faithful fellow——­”

“Gently, child,” whispered Frau Christine to her niece, laying her hand on her arm, but the magistrate, shaking his finger at her, answered soothingly:  “Jungfrau Ortlieb would rather thrust her own little feet into the Spanish boot.  Be comforted!  The three pairs we have are all too large to squeeze them.”