and although, as you left your scarf behind you, they might not know
that you are an officer, they would see that there was a mystery
about you."

"That is true, and I think that perhaps it would be as well if both
of us were to take off our own clothes when we get beyond the town
tonight, and go on only in those you got for us. When we rejoin
our friends we can get money and replace them."

"I have money with me, master," Paolo said. "I have had no occasion
to spend aught for a long time, and have changed my wages as you
paid them into gold, and have forty pistoles sewn up in the waistbelt
of my breeches. I heard you say that it was always a good thing
to carry a certain amount about with one in case of being taken
prisoner or laid up wounded."

"It was a wise precaution, Paolo; but just at the present moment
I would rather that you did not have it about you. However, I do
not suppose we shall be interfered with. You may as well continue
to wear your breeches under those you have outside, but leave your
doublet when I change. After all, if you were to be searched the
pistoles would show that we are not what we seem, unless we could
make up some plausible tale as to how we came possessed of them."

"Oh, we could manage that easily enough, master! There are other
ways of getting pistoles than by earning them."

Thus chatting they had crossed the bridge and were now entering
Eichstadt. Going to a quiet cabaret they ate a hearty meal, and
Hector afterwards bought the axes and knives, and they left the