"I hear that you are doing much good work to mitigate the disaster of the inundations," said Othomar. "The inundation is not a disaster." "Not a disaster!" asked Herman, surprised. "What then?" "A just punishment of heaven. And there will be more punishments. We live in sinful times." The princes exchanged a quick glance; they saw that the conversation would not go very easily. "But the sinners whom heaven punishes you assist for all that, Mr. Zanti," said Herman. "For all these huts...." "Are not huts. They are sheds, workshops or temporary dwellings. They will grow into a settlement, if such be God's will ... to enable men to live simply, by their work. Life is so simple, but man has made it so strange and complicated." "But you take in the peasants who have lost their all through the inundations?" Herman persisted. "I don't take them. When they feel their sins, they come to me and I save them from destruction." "And do they not come to you also without feeling their sins, because they feel that they will get food and lodging for nothing?" "They get no food and lodging for nothing: they have to work here, sir!" said the old man. "And perhaps more than you, who walk about in a uniform.... They are paid, according to the amount of work they do, out of the common fund. They are building here and I build with them. Do you see this tree here and this axe? I was employed in felling down this tree when you came and interrupted me." "A capital exercise," said Herman. "You look a vigorous man." "So you say you are forming a settlement here?" asked Othomar. "Yes, sir. The cities are corrupt; life in the country is purifying. Here they live; farther on lies arable land, which I give them, and pasture-land; I shall buy cattle for them." "So you are simply trying to recruit farmers here?" asked Herman. "No, sir!" answered the grey-beard gruffly. "I recruit no farmers; they are not my farmers. They are their own farmers. They work for themselves and I am a simple farmer like them. We are all equal...." "You are a simple farmer," Prince Herman echoed, "yet you live in a castle." "No, young man," replied Zanti, "I do not live in a castle; I live _here_; my daughter lives there by herself. She is ill.... She would not be able to stand an alteration in her mode of life, or any deprivation. But she will not live long...." He glanced up, looked at the Princes alternately, askance, almost anxiously: