The attempt was made and proved a failure, while the continuous firing above their heads hinted that it would be much safer to keep out of the upper world for a time.
'So it seems I only came out of the town to tumble into this ditch,' grumbled Prieme again. 'If the Swedes put in an appearance, things will pretty soon begin to look ugly for me.'
'Just you keep close to me,' said Conrad patronizingly. 'I've got a safe-conduct.'
'Where is it?' asked Prieme, looking at him in astonishment. 'I can't see one.'
'Here it is all right,' said Conrad producing it. 'Can you read?'
'What stupid rubbish!' muttered Prieme. 'Now, how can a scrap of paper like that be a safe-conduct? Why, a safe-conduct is a sort of thing that even the most savage enemy is forced to respect. Why, who told you such a pack of nonsense as that?'
Either because his tumble had muddled his brains, or for some other reason best known to himself, Conrad straightway cast all his stepfather's cautions to the winds, and told neighbour Prieme the whole story of the safe-conduct and why he was there.
'This seems to me rather serious,' said the worthy citizen, speaking half to himself. 'To be sure your stepfather is, in a manner of speaking, a bit of a magistrate; but then we all know how people we should never have expected—why, there was the Burgomaster of Bautzen was loaded into a cannon and fired off for trying to betray his native city to the enemy. At all events, Jüchziger can have no right to correspond with the Swedes without the commandant's knowledge. So give me that thing over here directly.'
Conrad protested against the abrupt demand, and, suddenly calling to mind his stepfather's forgotten orders, made a frantic attempt to hide the safe-conduct in his breast again. Master Prieme's strong arm would soon have gained the day, however, and deprived the boy of his paper, had not the arrival of a troop of the enemy put a sudend [Transcriber's note: sudden?] stop to their altercation.
Master Prieme, taken with a weapon in his hand, was made a prisoner of war; and Conrad Schmidt, loudly calling attention to his safe-conduct, was at once marched off to the enemy's headquarters.