The door slammed so that the house shook, and by degrees the smith’s heavy tread died away in the vestibule.
“All over, all over!” murmured the rejected son. Then calming himself, he clenched his fist and muttered through his set teeth: “There shall be no lack of ruin; whoever it befalls, can bear it.”
While walking through the streets and across the squares, he devised plan after plan, imagining what must come. Sword in hand he would burst the old man’s door, and the only booty he asked for himself should be Ruth, for whom he longed, who in spite of everything loved him, who had belonged to him from her childhood.
The next morning he negotiated cleverly and boldly with the commandant of the Spanish forces in the citadel. The fate of the city was sealed! and when he again crossed the great square and saw the city-hall with its proud, gable-crowned central building, and the shops in the lower floor crammed with wares, he laughed savagely.
Hans Eitelfritz had seen him in the distance, and shouted:
“A pretty little house, three stories high. And how the broad windows, between the pillars in the side wings, glitter!”
Then he lowered his voice, for the square was swarming with men, carts and horses, and continued:
“Look closer and choose your quarters. Come with me! I’ll show you where the best things we need can be found. Haven’t we bled often enough for the pepper-sacks? Now it will be our turn to fleece them. The castles here, with the gingerbread work on the gables, are the guildhalls. There is gold enough in each one, to make the company rich. Now this way! Directly behind the city-hall lies the Zucker Canal. There live stiff-necked people, who dine off of silver every day. Notice the street!”
Then he led him back to the square, and continued “The streets here all lead to the quay. Do you know it? Have you seen the warehouses? Filled to the very roof! The malmsey, dry canary and Indian allspice, might transform the Scheldt and Baltic Sea into a huge vat of hippocras.”
Ulrich followed his guide from street to street. Wherever he looked, he saw vast wealth in barns and magazines; in houses, palaces and churches.