The little Minister, on the other hand, hung back and marched slowly, his face wearing a look of triumph which showed very plainly--or so I construed it--that he regarded his release in the light of a victory. His sallow cheeks were flushed, and his eyes gleamed spitefully as he looked from side to side. He held himself bolt upright, with a square Bible clasped to his breast, and as he passed me he could not refrain from a characteristic outbreak. Doubtless to bridle himself before my lady had almost choked him. He laughed in my face. 'Dry bones!' he cackled. 'And mouths that speak not!'
'Speak plainly yourself, Master Dietz,' I answered, for I have never thought ministers more than other men. 'Then perhaps I shall be able to understand you.'
'Sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal!' he replied, cracking his fingers in my face and laughing triumphantly.
He would have said more, I imagine; but at that moment the Burgomaster fell bodily upon him, and drove him by main force through the gate which had been opened. Outside even, he made some attempts to return and defy us, crying out 'Whited sepulchres!' and the like. But the steps were narrow and steep, and Hofman stood like a feather bed in the way, and presently he desisted. The two stumbled down together and we saw no more of them.
The men about me laughed; but I had reason for thinking it far from a laughing matter, and I hastened into the house that I might tell my lady. When I entered the parlour, however, where I found her with the Waldgrave and Fraulein Anna, she held up her hand to check me. She and the Waldgrave were laughing, and Fraulein Anna, half shy and half sullen, was leaning against the table looking at the floor, with her cheeks red.
'Come,' my lady was saying, 'you were with him half an hour, Anna. You can surely tell us what you talked about. Don't be afraid of Martin. He knows all our secrets.'
'Or perhaps we are indiscreet,' the Waldgrave said gravely, but with a twinkle in his eye. 'When a young lady visits a gentleman in captivity, the conversation should be of a tender nature.'
'Which shows, sir, that you know little about it,' Fraulein Anna answered indignantly. 'We talked of Voetius.'
'Dear me!' my lord said. 'Then Master Dietz knows Voetius?'
'He does not. He said he considered such pagan learning useless,' Fraulein Anna answered, warming with her subject. 'That it tended to pride, and puffed up instead of giving grace. I said that he only saw one side of the matter.'