Then as I stood watching the swaying glittering hall, the hollowness, the mockery of all this spectacle swept across my soul with a kind of nausea. Here were we, the noble and mighty of Christendom dancing our nights away while God’s truth was being crucified, while human wrong and sin went unreproved, while Dr. Luther lay at Worms with the ban of the Empire about to be fulmined against him. I was at the end of my masker’s mood. The dancers were already beginning to scatter toward their several apartments. I went toward the rooms which had been placed at my disposal by Forli. I had drunk again from the Southern goblet. The first taste had been sweet, but the dregs were bitter. * * * * * As I left the festival hall no one seemed watching me, and for an instant a wild thought entered my mind of slipping past the guards, and out into the wide night and freedom. But it was unlikely that I would be allowed to pass the gate, and an unlucky attempt would make my last condition far worse than my present. One thing, however, I felt bound to do. Wandering around the great complex of passages, galleries, and cabinets that made up the state apartments of the castle, I stumbled upon a yawning serving-man, who was evidently one of the regular denizens of the residence, and very glad to find a soul among his new guests who could speak a word of German. From him (with a little well-feigned questioning) I readily learned where lay the chambers of the Abbess of Quedlinburg, and thither I took my steps. I was not mad enough to try to penetrate the chambers of nuns, and I knew the chances were all against accomplishing anything, but to lie down under the same roof that covered Ilsa and make no effort in her behalf and my own comported neither with love nor courage. And then for once Fortuna (treacherous lady!), was not wholly unkind. Near the entrance way to the abbess’s apartments I found a balcony which by vast good luck actually overhung the great hall from on high. The dancers were dispersing now; the tall candles were flaring down in their sockets, but the weary viols were still scraping out their last numbers. In the balcony, intent on the sights of splendor below, I caught the leaning forms of two or three women. There was light enough for me to see them clearly. By their dress they were beyond doubt lay servitors of Quedlinburg, and my heart beat faster. Now or never I must play my game. Drawing my domino closer across my face, and adopting a rolling gait as if I were a cavalier who had partaken too freely of the _aqua vitae_, I came up boldly. “Holla! my fine wenches,” cried I, in affectedly broken German, “I swear there has been a pretty sight down there under your eyes, but not so pretty as if some of you had been dancing yourselves.” The girls looked up, scared and simpering. They were quite of a class to take kindly to the advances of any individual with a mustache and the clothes of a gentleman.