CHAPTER XXIV.

Softly creeping by the sleeping sentinels, climbing walls and wading through ditches, the three fugitives proceeded in the dead of the night, until they finally found themselves in freedom; and then with fresh confidence they moved onward toward the besiegers' camp fires.

Soon a clattering of arms was heard near them, and a rough voice cried, 'Who goes there?'

'I have no desire to be caught here,' whispered Hanslein to Alf; 'for in that case I should get no credit for my voluntary return, which I particularly need on account of old scores. Wherefore I must endeavor to reach the bishop through indirect paths, while you boldly go straight forward.'

'Who goes there?' cried the challenger much louder.

'A friend!' answered Alf, whilst Hanslein went off to the right with great rapidity; 'deserters from Munster!' and in a moment he and the trembling Clara were surrounded by a squad of soldiers.

'Deserters?' asked the serjeant who led the squad. 'It is a question whether that t.i.tle will save your lives. In these days a thousand Munsterers have come out, men, women and children, and a good part of the men were cut down as they came in, by the bishop's command.'

'It is the curse of these combats for opinion,' said Alf, sorrowfully, 'that even those, who are on the right side, are provoked to do wrong by the crimes of their opponents--and then other crimes are the consequence, until the horrible chain of wickedness is closed by the conversion of men into relentless destroyers, in whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s the voice of religion and mercy is stifled.'

'You talk it as solemnly,' sneered the serjeant, 'as if you were one of the prophets of Munster. First of all give up your sword and follow us into the camp, together with your boy. The bishop must decide upon your case.'

'I wish previously to be conducted to your field captain,' said Alf in a decided tone.

'You speak as if you were our captain instead of our prisoner,' snarled the serjeant. 'It will be necessary first to ascertain, whether the lord general will permit you to be brought to him. For the present, forward, march!'

'G.o.d preserve us!' softly murmured the timid Clara, clinging closely to her protector.

'Do not be alarmed, my little Clara,' said Alf, consolingly. 'All will go well.' They proceeded with the soldiers rapidly towards the camp.

CHAPTER XXV.

A fine June morning was shining upon the camp, as Alf and Clara stood waiting with their escort before the tent of the commander in chief.

There came out of the tent a tall, meagre clergyman, in his black clerical dress. He started when he saw the youth, and asked the serjeant, 'who are these people?'

'Deserters from Munster,' answered the serjeant, 'whom we found last night. They insist upon seeing the general.'

The preacher having closely scrutinized Alf, who stood there absorbed in his own reflections, approached and spoke to him, taking his hand in the most friendly manner. 'Do I see you again as a deserter? Now, G.o.d be praised, my prophecy is fulfilled!'

'Reverend doctor!' cried Alf in joyful surprise, as he recognised the good Fabricius.

'So, the disorders in the new Zion have become too great for you?'

asked the latter. 'I only wonder that you had not come to the conclusion long ago,--that with your heart and head you could for so long a time have been a contented observer of their pagan cruelty.'

'When Germans have once become united with a ruler chosen by themselves, worthy sir,' answered Alf, 'they can be disunited only by hard blows, else they will hang fast to him until death.'

'The hard blows, I perceive, have been given and received,' said Fabricius. 'So you have again become one of us.'

'With all my heart and soul,' answered Alf with great ardor.

'We will leave the remainder of this for the confessional, where I may soon expect you,' said Fabricius. 'At present I must exert myself to prepare for you a good reception from the commanding general.'

Again most cordially shaking Alf's hand, he pa.s.sed into the tent.

Shortly afterward the youth and his girl-boy were bid to enter. Lord Oberstein was sitting with the doctor at the field table, taking his morning draught.

'Come nearer!' commanded the general, sternly.

'What have you to disclose to me?'

The voice of the questioner satisfied Alf, that it was the commander in chief whom he had caught and released on a former night; he however concealed this recognition.

'To make an end of the calamities of the city,' answered he, 'I am prepared to show your soldiers a way to enter Munster--the same way by which I have myself quitted it.'

'I recognise that voice!' cried Oberstein, springing up, and stepping directly in front of the youth. 'We have met before,' said he; 'it surely was in the outworks before the new gate, by moonlight. You were the officer who took me prisoner and then let me run? Is it not so?'

'I was very glad,' answered Alf, 'that it was in my power to save so old and merry a warrior.'

'And now are you willing to deliver the city to me?' proceeded Oberstein; 'to make a short ending to her long sufferings? You make me doubly your debtor; your reward shall be great.'

'Of myself little need be said,' answered Alf. 'My conditions are only pardon for myself and my companion, and that the conqueror of the city shall distinguish between the miscreants who have wilfully erred, and those who with honest intentions have been led astray, and spare the latter.'

'We must act according to the instructions of the diet of Worms,' said Oberstein. 'Whoever has not belonged to the leaders, and come not against us in arms, to them is given life and freedom.'

'Then should the lord bishop,' boldly replied Alf, 'have extended mercy to the unhappy refugees who have lately been fleeing from the city.'

'The bishop was exceedingly exasperated by events which accompanied the revolution!' answered the general, shrugging his shoulders; 'and an angry man does not always what is right in the sight of G.o.d.'

His eyes now fell upon Clara, who had timidly placed herself in an angle of the tent near the door.

'Who is that pretty boy?' asked he. 'Some one of the bishop's pages? It is to be hoped so. Two pages were made prisoners by the anabaptists and carried off at the time they attacked our camp at the beginning of the siege. To one of them particularly the worthy bishop was attached by a truly paternal affection.'

'Those boys have also fallen a sacrifice to the barbarity of the king,'

answered Alf. 'This maiden is the sister of the queen Eliza, who paid with her head for having lamented the murder of the innocents.'

'Great G.o.d, what an acc.u.mulation of crime!' cried Oberstein, while Fabricius with upraised finger reprovingly asked, 'have you brought with you a maiden in man's attire? Must there not yet remain something of the old anabaptist leaven in you, which may in time again leaven the whole lump, destroying your morals for time and eternity?'

'All in honor, dear doctor,' protested Alf; 'and I shall have to request you, as soon as may be convenient, to unite me in honorable marriage with this blameless maiden, who is my beloved and betrothed bride.'

'That alters the case,' said Fabricius, affectionately patting Clara's velvet cheeks. 'May G.o.d keep us in the good old order.'

'The lord bishop's reverend and princely grace,' said an episcopalian officer, stepping in, 'sends his compliments to the lord general and politely requests him to repair immediately to his presence. An anabaptist prisoner has brought before him some matters of consequence, which demand a sudden meeting of the council.'

'Yon shall accompany me there,' said Oberstein to Alf.

'But where shall I remain?' anxiously whispered Clara to her betrothed.

'May I be permitted to confide the maiden to your care, worthy sir?'

asked Alf of the doctor.