The wagon had been turned from the way. “Forward!” came the shout. I heard the riders ahead slap their horses. From under the black cape stole a white hand; there was just the chance for me to touch the tips of the fingers. Ilsa’s palfrey caught the stride of the others. I sprang back, spattered with mud. The whole had been done so quickly Abbess Theckla could have known nothing. And so in one afternoon, almost in one hour, I had words with two women who were making or marring my life. I stood marvelling at my strange fortune, and still more at the strange manner of our meeting--so different, so utterly different. On turning in at the house of the Knights of St. John I told myself it would be very easy later to ascertain the lodging place of so important a personage as the Abbess of Quedlinburg, but for the moment I had enough else to busy me. Poor Dr. Luther was still beset by a host of well intentioned friends thrusting upon him all manner of bad advice. There could be no doubt that the Emperor had formed an unfriendly opinion of him and that more than half of Worms expected him to retract at least the more extreme of his writings. “If you will merely recall two or three of the pamphlets,” I remember a Saxon councillor urging patronizingly, “say the ‘Babylonish Captivity’ and that violent last ‘Letter to the Pope,’ why it’s quite possible there will be very little urged against the others.” And I, knowing Dr. Luther, could see the quiet twinkle in his eyes, serious, yet not unmerry as he took all these friendly words in silence. At last he looked around, and on his face was the old smile so familiar in Wittenberg. “Ach! dear Christian friends. There is a good verse of Scripture, spoken I think for such poor wights as I, in cases like these ‘When they bring you unto the magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.’” “But reverend Doctor,” cried Von Thun, “it cannot be you are without a well considered course of action?” “Noble Privy Councillor,” answered my master, “Years ago when I lay very sick at Erfurt, when I was only a young student, and I was in great fear of death, there came to me an old priest, pious and good, who spoke, saying, ‘Take courage. You shall not now die, our God will yet make you an instrument for the comforting of many.’ And by God’s mercy, that prophesy has not proved vain. Nor do I think,” and his voice rose a little, “I have yet reached the end of that service appointed unto me. When I stand before Cæsar, I shall, heaven willing, say that which will make no friend of mine ashamed.”