“Oh, yes, your Ladyship,” said an old peasant, “we have travelled clear from Bitterfeld, my wife and I, to hear Master Tetzel. They say he sells a wondrous indulgence--if you have one, your sins are washed clean white; and they avail equally well to get your friends out of purgatory if they have gone before you.” “Crafty rascal,” I was muttering to Moritz. “I heard of this indulgence even in Rome. Half of the money _may_ go to build St. Peter’s church, but the other half, I take my oath, goes to the Fuggers, those Augsburg bankers who advanced the Archbishop of Mainz his 30,000 gulden to pay the Pope’s fees for his confirmation: and now the Archbishop is recouping himself.” “And as for Tetzel,” quoth Moritz, with an equal shrug, “he is a hang-dog Dominican of vile fame in these parts. Rumor makes him out as condemned for adultery at Innsbruck five years ago, and barely saved by the Elector of Saxony’s pleading; possibly the story’s unjust, but you can judge the man after you see him. At least, he has a front and a voice of brass--the noisy villain.” But my Lady Ilsa heard, or would hear, nothing of such innuendoes. After another pious wayfarer had suggested that one could probably buy an indulgence for some absent friend, I could ever see her giving the whip to her palfrey and leading us all. “It’s her father that’s on her mind, poor lass!” spoke Moritz to me under his breath. “I know what you are thinking, and I think the same; but if for a few gulden we can get a scrap of paper that will make _her_ a bit happier--who in the devil’s name should make a face?” And so we pressed onward. We saw the towers of Jüterbog, a little before noon, across the brown, sear grain fields of the advancing autumn. Solemn dark windmills were waving their long arms above the farmsteads. The squalid little thatched villages were pouring out their tow-headed northern peasantry, all headed for Jüterbog. At the gate of the small city and in the main street we could hardly win a way to the principal inn--despite vigorous laying about with our riding whips. We found the ‘Reichskanzler’ a very endurable hostelry, and luckily the best rooms were not taken, but mine host bustled up to us while at dinner to inform “their Lordships that they had best hasten their repast if they wished to see the reverend Commissioner of Indulgences enter the city.” The inn naturally faced upon the chief square opposite the church. A convenient window was reserved for us, and quite at our ease we witnessed a sight which we were not to forget for many a long day. Only, through it all, I had one eye on the swarming street below, and one on Gräfin Ilsa, who sat flushed, eager, beautiful, as if expecting some kind angel to come down and bring a miraculous deliverance. And repeatedly I marvelled to myself at the fate which made the mad heretic and infidel of Messere Chigi’s feast the silent witness of what now came to pass.