The Judge wished after dinner to gratify his beloved wife by counting the gold pieces in her presence. He unlocked the coffer, and started back in a tremor at the sight of its contents: the gold pieces were changed into large rats, which sprang out, and fell furiously upon his face and hands. The Judge, who had a great aversion to these animals, rushed out of the room; but they pursued him, fastening on his heels. He hurried from the house, and ran through the streets; but still they were close behind him. He fled into the fields; but they allowed him no rest, and at last forced the terrified wretch to seek shelter in the stone tower where the tolls are gathered, and which stands in the middle of the Rhine. Here he thought himself safe from farther pursuit; but rats and mice hot from hell are not to be terrified by water: they swam through, fell upon him, and ate him up alive. His wife, in her terror and astonishment, told the history of the transformation of the gold pieces by which her unfortunate husband had allowed himself to be dazzled; and from that time there has not been in the whole diocese of Mayence a single instance of a judge or a man in office taking a bribe. The Devil could not have foreseen this, or he certainly would have let the scoundrel go unpunished. Faustus and the Devil stood in their disguises before the gate of the convent of White Nuns. The portress ran as fast as she could in order to inform the abbess of the unexpected visitors. The abbess received them with conventual greetings, to which the Devil answered in a similar tone. Sweetmeats and wines were then brought in, and while partaking of them the two abbesses talked together, of cloister affairs, and of the wicked world; and the Devil, with a deep sigh, turned the discourse to Clara's accident. Clara, who, on account of her rank, was the pet-lamb of the cloister, stood near the abbess, and laughed beneath her veil. Faustus observed this, and, looking at her, really thought he had never seen a more charming rogue wear the sacred veil. The Devil at length gave the conversation a serious turn, and led the abbess to conclude that he had something weighty to confide to her. _Abbess_ (_to Clara_). You may go, my lamb, to the nuns in the garden, and divert yourself with them; I will send you out some sweetmeats, so that you may celebrate the coming of our venerable sister. Clara bounded away. After a few words, which the Devil uttered in a disturbed and thoughtful kind of tone, so that he might thereby arouse the curiosity of the abbess, he came to the point.