Dietel would far rather have served the Cologne theologians, whom he regarded as the appointed defenders of the true faith, than the insignificant folk at the other tables who had just finished their meal.

How unmannerly their behaviour was!  Better wine had been served before dessert, and they now shouted and sang so loudly and so out of tune that the air played by the strolling musicians could scarcely be distinguished.  Many a table, too, groaned under blows from the clinched fist of some excited reveller.  Every one seemed animated by a single desire-to drink again and again.

Now the last pieces of bread and the cloths were removed from the tables.  The carousers no longer needed Dietel.  He could leave the task of filling the jugs to his young assistants.

What were the envoys outside doing?  They were well off.  In here the atmosphere was stifling from the fumes emanating from the throng of people, the wine, and the food.  It seemed to draw all the flies from far and near.  Whence did they come?  They seemed to have increased by thousands since the early morning, when the room was empty.  The outside air appeared delightful to breathe.  He longed to fill his lungs again with the pure wind of heaven, and at the same time catch a few words of the conversation between the envoys to the Reichstag.

So Dietel hobbled to the open window, where the strollers were resting.

Cyriax was lying on the floor asleep, with the brandy bottle in his arms.  Two of his companions, with their mouths wide open, were snoring at his side.  Raban, who begged for blood-money, was counting the copper coins which he had received.  Red-haired Gitta was sewing another patch of cloth upon her rough husband’s already well-mended jerkin by the dim light of a small lamp, into which she had put some fat and a bit of rag for a wick.  It was difficult to thread the needle.  Had it not been for the yellow blaze of the pitchpans fastened to the wall with iron clamps, which had already been burning an hour, she could scarcely have succeeded.

“Make room there,” the waiter called to the vagrants, giving the sleeping Jungel a push with his club foot.  The latter grasped his crutch, as he had formerly seized the sword he carried as a foot soldier ere he lost his leg before Padua.  Then, with a Spanish oath learned in the Netherlands, he turned over, still half asleep, on his side.  So Dietel found room, and, after vainly looking for Kuni among the others, gazed out at the starlit sky.

Yonder, in front of the house, beside the tall oleanders which grew in wine casks cut in halves instead of in tubs, the learned and aristocratic gentlemen sat around the table with outstretched heads, examining by the light of the torches the pages which Dr. Eberbach drew forth, one after another, from the inexhaustible folds of the front of his black robe.