“O my God do it! Thou must do it! Yea, Thou alone must do it! Not mine but Thine is the Cause. For my own self, I can do nothing against these great earthly lords. Peaceful days I would have chosen, and days afar from this sore strife. But Thine, O Lord, is this cause: righteous it is and eternal. Stand by me, then, Thou true and everlasting God! For in no man do I put my trust.” (By this time the five cutthroats had slunk back to the wall, and would have gone farther, save that they lacked strength and courage to scale it. Luther prayed on.) “All that is of the flesh and that savors of flesh is here of no account. God, O God, dost Thou not hear me? Art Thou verily dead? No. Thou canst not die, Thou art only hiding Thyself. Hast Thou chosen me for this work? I ask Thee how I may be sure of this, if it be Thy will, for I would never have thought in all my life of undertaking aught against such mighty lords.” “Hence! Hence or we are damned forever!” The command came very audibly from Hans Lange. “There is not money enough in all Germany to make me do this devil’s work.” With one bound he cleared the wall, and vanished. “O you Tedesci cowards,” snarled Orosi, “scared as old women!” but he was the second to leap. The others followed like a herd of goats. As for ourselves, we stood transfixed. It was beyond my power to break that spell, to nip the villains even as they were escaping from our hands. Dr. Luther’s voice rang out again, swelling with an indescribable emotion. “Stand by me, O God, in the name of Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, who shall be my defence and strength, yea my mighty fortress, through the might and strength of the Holy Ghost. Lord, where abidest Thou? Thou art my God: where art Thou? Come! come! I am ready to lay down my life patiently as a lamb. For the Cause is right and it is Thine, so I shall never be separated from Thee. Let all be done in Thy name! The world must leave my conscience unconstrained; and, although it should be full of devils, and my body, Thy creation, be rent into fragments, yet are Thy Word and Spirit good unto me. All this can befall only the body. The soul is Thine and belongs to Thee, and shall abide with Thee eternally. Amen. God help me. Amen.” [12] Silence at last. Victorious in his wrestlings, comforted it seemed in his spirit, Dr. Luther’s form vanished from the window. The alley behind us was absolutely still. The five cutthroats had fled, routed by a mightier power than our steel and gunpowder, nor did they ever know how justly they had feared damnation as the price of lingering. After a while I let Adolf search the alley. It was empty. Lange, Orosi, and their confederates had not waited. There was nothing more to fear that night.