The next morning he negotiated cleverly and boldly with the commandant of the Spanish forces in the citadel.  The fate of the city was sealed! and when he again crossed the great square and saw the city-hall with its proud, gable-crowned central building, and the shops in the lower floor crammed with wares, he laughed savagely.

Hans Eitelfritz had seen him in the distance, and shouted: 

“A pretty little house, three stories high.  And how the broad windows, between the pillars in the side wings, glitter!”

Then he lowered his voice, for the square was swarming with men, carts and horses, and continued: 

“Look closer and choose your quarters.  Come with me!  I’ll show you where the best things we need can be found.  Haven’t we bled often enough for the pepper-sacks?  Now it will be our turn to fleece them.  The castles here, with the gingerbread work on the gables, are the guildhalls.  There is gold enough in each one, to make the company rich.  Now this way!  Directly behind the city-hall lies the Zucker Canal.  There live stiff-necked people, who dine off of silver every day.  Notice the street!”

Then he led him back to the square, and continued “The streets here all lead to the quay.  Do you know it?  Have you seen the warehouses?  Filled to the very roof!  The malmsey, dry canary and Indian allspice, might transform the Scheldt and Baltic Sea into a huge vat of hippocras.”

Ulrich followed his guide from street to street.  Wherever he looked, he saw vast wealth in barns and magazines; in houses, palaces and churches.

Hans Eitelfritz stopped before a jeweller’s shop, saying: 

“Look here!  I particularly admire these things, these toys:  the little dog, the sled, the lady with the hoopskirt, all these things are pure silver.  When the pillage begins, I shall grasp these and take them to my sister’s little children in Colln; they will be delighted, and if it should ever be necessary, their mother can sell them.”

What a throng crowded the most aristocratic streets!  English, Spanish, Italian and Hanseatic merchants tried to outdo the Netherland traders in magnificent clothes and golden ornaments.  Ulrich saw them all assembled in the Gothic exchange on the Mere, the handsomest square in the city.  There they stood in the vast open hall, on the checkered marble floor, not by hundreds, but by thousands, dealing in goods which came from all quarters of the globe—­from the most distant lands.  Their offers and bids mingled in a noise audible at a long distance, which was borne across the square like the echo of ocean surges.

Sums were discussed, which even the winged imagination of the lansquenet could scarcely grasp.  This city was a remarkable treasure, a thousand-fold richer booty than had been garnered from the Ottoman treasure-ship on the sea at Lepanto.

Here was the fortune the Eletto needed, to build the palace in which he intended to place Ruth.  To whom else would fall the lion’s share of the enormous prize!