Every house, every paving stone here was familiar and awakened some memory.  A crowd of people surrounded her, and among them appeared many a foreign soldier on foot and on horseback, who would have been well worthy of an attentive glance.  But what did she care for the Italians in helmets and coats of mail who filled the Altstadt—­the main business street of Landshut—­through which she was being carried?  She doubtless cast a glance toward the Town Hall, where her uncle was now devising means to provide shelter for this legion of soldiers and steeds, doubtless put her head a little out of the window as she approached the houses and arcades in the lower stories, and the Lorberer mansion, with the blunt gable, where she had spent such happy days, appeared.  But she quickly drew it back again; if any of her relatives should see her, what answer could she make to questions?

But no one perceived her, and who knows whether they would not have supposed the delicate, troubled face, short locks of hair, and unnaturally large eyes to be those of another girl who only resembled the blooming, healthful Barbara of former days?

She also glanced toward the richly decorated portal of St. Martin’s Church, standing diagonally opposite to the sedan chair, and tried to look up to the steeple, which was higher than almost any other in the world.

Even in Ratisbon there was not a handsomer, wider street than this Altstadt, with its stately gable-roofed houses, and certainly not in Munich, where her uncle had once taken her, and the Bavarian dukes now resided.

But where, in Heaven’s name, would she be borne?

The sedan chair was now swaying past the place where the “short cut” for pedestrians led up to the Trausnitzburg, the proud citadel of the dukes of Bavarian Landshut.  She leaned forward again to look up at it as it towered far above her head on the opposite side of the way; the powerful ruler whose captive she was probably lodged there.

But now!

What did this mean?

The sedan chair was set down, and it was just at the place where the road at her left, leading to the citadel, climbed the height where rose the proud Trausnitz fortress.

Perhaps she might now find an opportunity to escape.

Barbara hastily opened the door, but one of her attendants closed it again, and in doing so pressed her gently back into the chair.  At the same time he shook his head, and, while his little black eyes twinkled slyly at her, his broad, smiling mouth, over which hung a long black mustache, uttered a good-natured “No, no.”

Now the ascent of the mountain began.  A wall bordered the greater portion of the road, which often led through a ravine overgrown with brushwood and past bastions and other solid masonry.

The bearers had already mounted to a considerable height, yet there was no view of the city and the neighbouring country.  But even the loveliest prospect would not have induced Barbara to open her eyes, for the indignation which overpowered her had increased to fierce rage, blended with a fear usually alien to her courageous soul.