It was misinformation upon this point which undoubtedly brought them to Marburg, for a false rumor made that much discussed theologian take the northerly route towards Hesse, whereas later and more authentic tidings reported him as travelling by way of Frankfurt and Hersfeld. When the party had come to Marburg and discovered themselves upon a wrong scent the Vicomte was heard to indulge in many brisk oaths, proper indeed for a secular nobleman, though they would have been deplorable in the Cardinale di Forli. On the morning in question the Vicomte had held a rapid colloquy with his niece, wherein it appeared that it was necessary to overtake Dr. Luther with speed, and also necessary to keep their crazed prisoner in sure custody (it being possible to convey him only in the heavy closed coach). The Vicomte therefore resolved to take his best horses and the better part of his men and to ride post on his errand, while the lady with her maid and four of their less active varlets would remain to guard the prisoner and await directions as to rejoining her uncle. At about seven in the morning the Vicomte rode away. From a chamber window that luckily commanded a little view of the inn court the “melancholy crazed nobleman” (so the servants called him) could see the company depart. The Vicomte, despite his girth, carried himself excellently on a powerful stallion. His eight followers included three who professed themselves Frenchmen (“surely Gascons, they were so dark”), and five Rhinelanders and Swabians, tow-pated jail fledglings, strange birds to see in the retinue of so genteel a cavalier, “but, after all, honest Germans did not like to take service with foreigners, and travellers must take what rascals presented themselves for hire.” The prisoner saw the Vicomte depart. The clatter of hoofs died on the cobble-paved street. Dead silence seemed to reign through the inn broken only by the ticking of the great clock which stood behind the door of the room occupied by the presumable madman. The prisoner leaned on the casement, and studied for the twentieth time the view across the red roofs of the little city to the graceful green hill where rose Landgraf Philip’s sturdy Schloss. He had been in Marburg before and knew that behind the inn ran the swift green Lahn, and that the winding streets of the town made it among the most picturesque in all picturesque Hesse. All this, however, did not relieve the fact that he was manacled hand and foot, and that a sullen, taciturn fellow, whose grunts seemed to prove him a Hollander, sat by his door with a heavy partisan. This was indeed only proper, considering the danger of the poor nobleman doing himself a mischief, yet it could hardly raise that individual’s spirits.