I touched Master Lindstrom's sleeve--who would of himself have persisted--and stayed him. "It is of no use," I muttered. "That dog in a crochet has condemned me. He will have his way!"
There was a short debate between the three judges, while in the court you might have heard a pin drop. Master Lindstrom had fallen back once more. I was alone again, and the stained window seemed to be putting forth its mystic influence to enfold me, when, looking up, I saw a tiny shadow flit across the soft many-hued rays which streamed from it athwart the roof. It passed again, once, twice, thrice. I peered upward intently. It was a swallow flying to and fro amid the carved work.
Yes, a swallow. And straightway I forgot the judges; forgot the crowd. The scene vanished and I was at Coton End again, giving Martin Luther the nest for Petronilla--a sign, as I meant it then, that I should return. I should never return now. Yet my heart was on a sudden so softened that, instead of this reflection giving me pain, as one would have expected, it only filled me with a great anxiety to provide for the event. She must not wait and watch for me day after day, perhaps year after year. I must see to it somehow; and I was thinking with such intentness of this, that it was only vaguely I heard the sentence pronounced. It might have been some other person who was to be beheaded at the east gate an hour before noon. And so God save the Duke!
CHAPTER XVI.
[IN THE DUKE'S NAME.]
They took me back to the room in the tower, it being now nearly ten o'clock. Master Lindstrom would fain have stayed with me constantly to the end, but having the matter I have mentioned much in my mind, I begged him to go and get me writing materials. When he returned Van Tree was with him. With a particularity very curious at that moment, I remarked that the latter was carrying something.
"Where did you get that?" I said sharply and at once.
"It is your haversack," he answered, setting it down quietly. "I found the man who had taken possession of your horse, and got it from him. I thought there might be something in it you might like."
"It is my haversack," I assented. "But it was not on my horse. I have not seen it since I left it in Master Lindstrom's house by the river. I left it on the pallet in my room there, and it was forgotten. I searched for it at Emmerich, you remember."
"I only know," he replied, "that I discovered it behind the saddle of the horse you were riding yesterday."