This frightened him, and instead of continuing to boast of his success, he called for help.

The Nuremberg gentlemen soon surrounded Kuni, and Doctor Hartmann Schedel told the waiter to carry her, with the aid of his assistants, summoned by his shout, into the house and provide her with a comfortable bed.

Dietel obeyed the command without delay—­nay, when he heard the famous leech whisper to the other gentlemen that the sufferer’s life was but a failing lamp, his feelings were completely transformed.  All the charity in his nature began to stir and grew more zealous as he gazed at Kuni’s face, distorted by pain.  The idea of giving up to her his own neat little room behind the kitchen seemed like a revelation from St. Eoban, his patron.  She should rest in his bed.  The wanderer who, a few years ago, had scattered her gold so readily and joyously for the pleasure of others certainly would not poison it.  Her misery seemed to him a touching proof of the transitory nature of all earthly things.  Poor sufferer!  Yet she ought to find recovery on his couch, if anywhere; for he had surrounded it with images of the saints, pious maxims, and little relics, bought chiefly from the venders who frequented the tavern.  Among them was a leather strap from St. Elizabeth’s shoe, whose healing power he had himself tested during an attack of bilious fever.

The burden which he shared with his assistants was a light one, but he was not to reach his destination without delay—­the little bunch of pinks fell from the hand of the unconscious girl, and Dietel silently picked up the stolen property which had just roused his wrath to such a degree, and placed it carefully on the senseless sufferer’s bosom.

The second hinderance was more serious.  Cyriax had heard that Kuni was dying, and fearing that he might be obliged to pay the funeral expenses he stuttered to the bystanders, with passionate gestures, that an hour ago he had discharged the cripple whom he had dragged about with him, out of sheer sympathy, long enough.  She was nothing more to him now than the cock in the courtyard, which was crowing to greet the approach of dawn.

But the landlord of The Pike and others soon forced Cyriax out of the way.  Kuni was laid on Dietel’s bed, and the gray-haired leech examined her with the utmost care.

The landlady of The Pike helped to undress her, and when the good woman, holding her apron to her eyes from which tears were streaming, opened the door again and the Abbot of St. AEgidius approached the couch, to render aid to the dying for the second time that night, he saw by Hartmann Schedel’s face that he had not come too soon.

The ropedancer had recovered consciousness, and the kind prelate’s presence was a solace to her.  The confession lasted a long time, and the story which she had to confide to the priest must have been as strange as it was interesting, for the abbot listened eagerly and with evident emotion.  When he had performed the duties of his office he remained alone for a time; he could not immediately regain a mood in which he cared to rejoin the others.  He did not ask for the gentlemen from Cologne; those from Nuremberg, whom he sought, had returned to the table in front of the tavern long before.