The other gazed keenly at the Eletto, shook his head, and said:  “You have not seemed a total stranger to me from the first; but I never was in Spain.”

“But I have been in Swabia, and at that time you did me a kindness.  Would your ransom be large enough to cover the cost of a broken church window?”

The count opened his eyes in amazement and a bright smile flashed over his face as, clapping his hands, he exclaimed with sincere delight: 

“You, you—­you are Ulrich!  I’ll be damned, if I’m mistaken!  But who the devil would discover a child of the Black Forest in the Spanish Eletto?”

“That I am one, must remain a secret between us for the present,” exclaimed Ulrich, extending his hand to the count.  “Keep silence, and you will be free—­the window will cover the ransom!”

“Holy Virgin!  If all the windows in the monastery were as dear, the monks might grow fat!” cried the count.  “A Swabian heart remains half Swabian, even when it beats under a Spanish doublet.  Its luck, Turk’s luck, that I followed Floyon;—­and your old father, Adam?  And Ruth—­what a pleasure!”

“You ought to know....my father is dead, died long, long ago!” said Ulrich, lowering his eyes.

“Dead!” exclaimed the other.  “And long ago?  I saw him at the anvil three weeks since.”

“My father?  At the anvil?  And Ruth?....” stammered Ulrich, gazing at the other with a pallid, questioning face.

“They are alive, certainly they are alive!  I met him again in Antwerp.  No one else can make you such armor.  The devil is in it, if you hav’nt heard of the Swabian armorer.”

“The Swabian—­the Swabian—­is he my father?”

“Your own father.  How long ago is it?  Thirteen years, for I was then sixteen.  That was the last time I saw him, and yet I recognized him at the first glance.  True, I shall never forget the hour, when the dumb woman drew the arrow from the Jew’s breast.  The scene I witnessed that day in the forest still rises before my eyes, as if it were happening now.”

“He lives, they did not kill him!” exclaimed the Eletto, now first beginning to rejoice over the surprising news.  “Lips, man—­Philipp!  I have found my mother again, and now my father too.  Wait, wait!  I’ll speak to the lieutenant, he must take my place, and you and I will ride to Lier; there you will tell me the whole story.  Holy Virgin! thanks, a thousand thanks!  I shall see my father again, my father!”

It was past midnight, but the schoolmates were still sitting over their wine in a private room in the Lion at Lier.  The Eletto had not grown weary of questioning, and Count Philipp willingly answered.

Ulrich now knew what death the doctor had met, and that his father had gone to Antwerp and lived there as an armorer for twelve years.  The Jew’s dumb wife had died of grief on the journey, but Ruth was living with the old man and kept house for him.  Navarrete had often heard the Swabian and his work praised, and wore a corselet from his workshop.