should have a proper beard, since the rogue is not so young as he pretends: but if a woman, why hath the old witch so much stubble round her mouth? Sure 'tis a woman, thought I, for no honest man would ever let his beard be so lamentably bedevilled, seeing that even goats for pure shamefacedness venture not a step among a strange flock when their beards are clipped. So as I stood in doubt, knowing not of modern fashions, at last I held he was man and woman at once. And this mannish woman or this womanish man had me thoroughly searched, but could find nothing on me but a little book of birch-bark wherein I had written down my daily prayers, and had also left the letter which my pious hermit, as I have said in the last chapter, had bequeathed me for his farewell: that he took from me: but I, being loath to part from it, fell down before him and clasped both his knees and, "O my good Hermaphrodite," says I, "leave me my little prayer-book." "Thou fool," he answered, "who the devil told thee my name was Hermann?" And therewith commanded two soldiers to lead me to the Governor, giving them the book to take with them: for indeed this fop, as I at once did note, could neither read nor write himself. So I was led into the town, and all ran together as if a sea-monster were on show; and according as each one regarded me so each made something different out of me. Some deemed me a spy, others a wild man, and some even a spirit, a spectre, or a monster, that should portend some strange happening. Some, too, there were that counted me a mere fool, and they had indeed come nearest to the mark had I not had the knowledge of God our Father. _Chap. xx._: IN WHAT WISE HE WAS SAVED FROM PRISON AND TORTURE