Nothing more could any man get out of him. Seeing that he was surely weary, Amsdorf and I at length sent the busybodies away. I stationed Gunter, Adolf, and Andrea, well armed, around Dr. Luther’s chamber, and myself lay down in the next room with a ready sword and pistols. Nothing, however, disturbed us that night. Fatigued myself with all the strange sights and vicissitudes, I slept soundly, interrupted only by the rumbling of the city cart that coursed the streets after midnight, to carry home the topers left sprawling in the gutters after a riotous evening. CHAPTER XXVIII BEHOLD, HE PRAYETH On the afternoon of the 17th of April, Luther was conducted before the Diet to answer to the charges of heresy. The morning was passed by my master very calmly, reading, writing, and actually going from his lodgings to visit, console, and administer the sacrament to a sick Saxon knight. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when the peasant-born friar, who had set knights, bishops, electors by the ears, with cardinals, Pope, and Emperor to boot, was conducted before the assembled estates of the Holy Roman Empire. But of this first assembly, and all who were there and what passed, I omit the details, seeing that this audience before the Diet was but the prelude to the real ordeal. Of all the friends and foes who looked so curiously on him that day, I think all but a few were sorely amazed at his conduct. “He will recant,” or “He will stand firm,”--one saying or the other had been on every tongue. But I, and one or two more, who had communed with him often, were not so surprised. Well did we understand how Martin Luther looked upon this audience as the crisis of his life, and, trusting none the less in heaven, was not the least resolved to blunder through lack of temporal circumspection and worldly wisdom. So when the “Official General,” who conducted the interrogations for the Emperor, having put the preliminary questions, asked if he would repudiate or withdraw his books alleged heretical, and when all ears were bent for a sturdy “yea” or “nay,” on the contrary, Luther in mild voice answered that the matter was one of great moment and touched upon “the salvation of souls.” If he spoke without due consideration he might be over-bold, run into sore peril, and incur God’s wrath; therefore he entreated time for deliberation, “that he might answer the interrogation without injury to the Divine Word, or peril to his own soul.” There was a buzz among the princes, a whispering betwixt the Emperor and Aleander, the lowering Papal legate. With some asperity the Imperial spokesman made answer that Luther surely knew wherefore he had been summoned and what might be asked of him; nevertheless, that he might have fair play, four-and-twenty hours were given him. Then he must be ready with his answer.