After assuring himself of this fact he stood still, rubbing his narrow forehead with the tips of his fingers.

The rogue was most probably one of the vagrants, and like a flash it entered his mind that the ropedancer, Kuni, who in her prosperous days, instead of eating meat and vegetables, preferred to satisfy her appetite with fruits and sweet dainties, might be the culprit.  Besides, when he had looked around among the guests just before, she was no longer with the other vagabonds.

Certain of having found the right trail, he instantly went to the window below which the strollers lay, thrust his head into the room from the outside, and waked the wife of the tongueless swearer.  She had fallen asleep on the floor with the sewing in her hand.  The terror with which she started up at his call bore no favourable testimony to her good conscience, but she had already recovered her bold unconcern when he imperiously demanded to know what had become of lame Kuni.

“Ask the other travellers—­the soldiers, the musicians, the monks, for aught I care,” was the scornful, irritating answer.  But when Dietel angrily forbade such insolent mockery, she cried jeeringly: 

“Do you think men don’t care for her because she has lost her foot and has that little cough?  You ought to know better.

“Master Dieter has a sweetheart for every finger, though the lower part of his own body isn’t quite as handsome as it might be.”

“On account of my foot?” the waiter answered spitefully.  “You’ll soon find that it knows how to chase.  Besides, the Nuremberg city soldiers will help me in the search.  If you don’t tell me at once where the girl went—­by St. Eoban, my patron——­”

Here red-haired Gitta interrupted him in a totally different tone; she and her companions had nothing good to expect from the city soldiers.

In a very humble manner she protested that Kuni was an extraordinarily charitable creature.  In a cart standing in the meadow by the highroad lay the widow of a beggar, Nickel; whom the peasants had hung on account of many a swindling trick.  A goose and some chickens had strayed off to his premises.  The woman had just given birth to twins when Nickel was hung, and she was now in a violent fever, with frequent attacks of convulsions, and yet had to nurse the infants.  The landlady of The Pike had sent her some broth and a little milk for the children.  As for Kuni, she had gone to carry some linen from her own scanty store to the two babies, who were as naked as little frogs.  He would find her with the sick mother.

All this flowed from Gitta’s lips with so much confidence that Dietel, whose heart was easily touched by such a deed of charity, though he by no means put full confidence in her, allowed himself to be induced to let the city soldiers alone for the present and test the truth of her strange statement himself.