soon as I was fain to use my hands again, and sing a snatch as I went up
and down the house, meseemed her old love bloomed forth with double
strength. Meseemed I could but show her my thankfulness, and my ear and
heart were at all times open when she was moved to talk of her best-
beloved Herdegen, and reveal to me all the wondrous adventures he had
gone through in her imagination. And this befell most evenings, from the
hour when we unclothed till long after we had gone to rest; and I was
fain to keep my eyes open while, for the twentieth time, she would
expound to me her far-fetched visions: that the Mamelukes of Egypt, who
were all slaves and whose Sultan was chosen from among themselves, had of
a surety set Herdegen on the throne, seeing him to be the goodliest and
noblest of them all. And perchance he would not have refused this honor
if he might thereby turn them from their heathenness and make of them
good Christians. Nay, nor was it hard for her to fancy Ann arrayed in
silk and gems as a Sultana. And then, when I fell asleep in listening to
these fancies, which she loved to paint in every detail, behold my dreams
would be of Turks and heathen; and of bloody battles by land and sea.

No man may tell his dreams fasting; but as soon as I had eaten my first
mouthful she would bid me tell her all, to the veriest trifle, and would
solemnly seek the interpretation of every vision.



CHAPTER VIII.

My lord Cardinal had departed from Nuremberg some long while, by reason
that he was charged by his holiness the Pope with a mission which took
him through Cologne and Flanders to England. Inasmuch as he was not
suffered to have Ann herself in his company, he conceived the wish to