Only the leaders were absent.  Gombert had left Brussels later than the others, and hastened after them with post-horses, overtaking them about an hour before, when he induced Appenzelder, the leader of the boy choir, to enter his carriage, though the latter was reluctant to leave the young singers who were intrusted to his care.  As to the other travellers, the Queen and Don Luis Quijada had made a great mistake in their calculations—­the number considerably exceeded a hundred.  Neither had thought of the women and children who accompanied the musicians.

Most of the women were the wives of the members of the orchestra, who had availed themselves of this opportunity to see something of the world.  Others, from motives of love or jealousy, would not part from their husbands.  The little children had been taken because their mothers, who were fond of travelling and, like their husbands, were natives of all countries, possessed no relatives in Brussels who would care for them.

The jealous spouses especially had not joined the party without cogent reasons, for the mirth in the first long wagon, covered with a linen tilt, was uproarious enough.

Wolf and his companion heard shrill laughter and loud shrieks echoing from its dusky interior.

The younger men and the women who liked journeying were sitting in motley confusion upon the straw which covered the bottom of the vehicle, and the boisterous mirth of the travellers gave ample proof that the huge jugs of wine carried with them as the Emperor’s provision for the journey had been freely used.

In the second cart, an immense ark, swaying between four wheels and drawn by a team of four horses, grave older artists sat silently opposite to each other, all more or less exhausted by the continual rocking motion of the long ride.  These men and the other travellers were joyfully surprised by the news that the goal of the journey was already at hand.  Pressing their heads together, they gazed out of the open linen tilt which arched above the first cart or crowded to the little windows of the coaches to see Ratisbon.

Even the old Neapolitan nurse, who was predicting future events from a pack of cards, dropped them and peered out.  But the noise in the second tilted wagon was especially confused, for there the gay shouts of the boy choir, only half of whom were on horseback, mingled with the loud talking of the women, the screams of the babies, and the barking of the dogs.

The groans of two young singers who were seriously ill were drowned by the din and heeded by no one except the old drummer’s pitying wife, who sometimes wiped the perspiration from the sufferers’ brows or supported their heads.

Other carts, containing the musicians’ instruments, followed this tilted wagon.  Some members of the orchestra would not part with theirs, and behind the saddle of many a mounted virtuoso or attendant was fastened a violin case or a shapeless bag which concealed some other instrument.