The pale child in her arms often raised its little hand to its cheek, which was wet with the tears of the woman; who tended it.  How hard, how unspeakably, terribly hard it was for this woman, with the youthful face and white locks, to remain quiet!  How she longed to start up and call joyously to the child, the man, her lover’s enemy, but her own, own Ulrich: 

“Look at me, look at me!  I am your mother.  You are mine!  Come, come to my heart!  I will never leave you more!”

Ulrich now laughed heartily again, not suspecting what was passing in a mother’s heart, close beside him; he had no eyes for her, and only listened to the jests of the German lansquenet, with whom he drained beaker after beaker.

The strange child served as a shield to protect the camp-sibyl from her son’s eyes, and also to conceal from him that she was watching, listening, weeping.  Eitelfritz talked most and made one joke after another; but she did not laugh, and only wished he would stop and let Ulrich speak, that she might be permitted to hear his voice again.

“Give the dog Lelaps a little corner of the settle,” cried Hans Eitelfritz.  “He’ll get his feet wet on the damp floor—­for the rain is trickling in—­and take cold.  This choice fellow isn’t like ordinary dogs.”

“Do you call the tiger Lelaps?” asked Ulrich.  “An odd name.”

“I got him from a student at Tubingen, dainty Junker Fritz of Hallberg, in exchange for an elephant’s tusk I obtained in the Levant, and he owes his name to the merry rogue.  I tell you, he’s wiser than many learned men; he ought to be called Doctor Lelaps.”

“He’s a pretty creature.”

“Pretty!  More, far more!  For instance, at Naples we had the famous Mortadella sausage for breakfast, and being engaged in eager conversation, I forgot him.  What did my Lelaps do?  He slipped quietly into the garden, returned with a bunch of forget-me-nots in his mouth, and offered it to me, as a gallant presents a bouquet to his fair one.  That meant:  dogs liked sausage too, and it was not seemly to forget him.  What do you say to that show of sense?”

“I think your imagination more remarkable than the dog’s sagacity.”

“You believed in my good fortune in the old days, do you now doubt this true story?”

“To be sure, that is rather preposterous, for whoever loyally and faithfully trusts good-fortune—­your good fortune—­is ill-advised.  Have you composed any new songs?”

“’That is all over now!” sighed the trooper.  “See this scar!  Since an infidel dog cleft my skull before Tunis, I can write no more verses; yet it hasn’t grown quiet in my upper story on that account.  I lie now, instead of composing.  My boon companions enjoy the nonsensical trash, when I pour it forth at the tavern.”

“And the broken skull:  is that a forget-me-not story too, or was it. . . .”