'Where is Jüchziger?' he said instantly. 'He is to come at once to the Burgomaster.'
'He went out a little while ago,' replied Conrad, 'and did not leave word where he was going.'
'What! you here, boy!' cried Prieme, in evident surprise. 'Ha! And how did you get out of the Swedes' hands and into the town again? How about that safe-conduct and that precious buried box? The whole thing looked very suspicious, very suspicious indeed.'
Conrad found himself in a great difficulty. Should he make a clean breast of it, and perhaps get his step-father into dreadful trouble? He at first hesitated, and then stammered—
'Well—the—the Swedes—let me go in three days.'
'And the box? What about that?'
'Oh—well,' stammered Conrad, incapable of telling a lie, 'the box? I got that too.'
'Dug it out of the cellar?'
'No; not that. The Swedes dug it up, and gave it me; and then'—
'That's false!' cried Prieme. 'Sooner get blood out of a post than a box worth keeping out of the clutches of a Swede. What was in it?'