acquainted with the city, and perhaps would spare him a walk by informing
him where the sick lads would find the best shelter. The Stag was
overcrowded, and he was reluctant to leave the poor fellows in the little
sleeping room which they shared with their companions. The Ratisbon
physician had ordered them to be sent to the hospital; but the boy from
Cologne opposed it so impetuously that he, Appenzelder, thought it his
duty to seek another shelter for the sufferers.

When Wolf with the older man entered the low, close chamber, he found the
lad, a handsome, vigorous boy, with his fair, curling hair tossed in
disorder around his fevered face, standing erect in his bed. While the
doctor was trying to compel him to obey and enter the litter which stood
waiting for him, he beat him back with his strong young fists. He would
rather jump into the open grave or into the rushing river, he shrieked to
the corpulent leech, than be dragged into the hospital, which was the
plague, death, hell.

He emphasized his resistance with heavy blows, while his Italian
companion in suffering, livid, ashen-gray, with bowed head and closed
lids, permitted himself to be placed in the litter without moving.

At Wolf's entrance the German youth, like a drowning man who sees a
friend on the shore, shrieked an entreaty to save him from the murderers
who wanted to drag him to death. The young knight gazed compassionately
at the lad's flushed face, and, after a brief pause of reflection,
proposed committing the sufferers to the care of the Knights
Hospitallers.

This removed the burden from the young Rhinelander's tortured soul, yet
he insisted, with passionate impetuosity, upon having his master and the