"This truly is a miracle," he cried, "that one should go fishing in the air for a bird of the field! And see! Hey, presto! it has disappeared, bone and all! Verily, what is it that is greedier than dry sand? I will tell you. A barren woman and a hungry man." Scarcely had he spoken than he clapped his hand to his face, for two tartlets had flattened themselves, one on his eye, the other on his cheek. The gay girls who had thrown them laughed aloud, but Ulenspiegel made answer: "Many thanks, my pretties, many thanks for thus embracing me with this jammy accolade." Nevertheless the tartlets had fallen to the ground. And then suddenly the drums began to beat, the fifes screamed, and the soldiers fell in again. Monsieur de Beauvoir ordered Ulenspiegel to come down from his tree and to march by the side of the soldiers. Ulenspiegel would willingly have been parted from them by a hundred leagues, for he had gathered from the remarks let fall by certain thin-faced foot-soldiers that he was already under suspicion, and that he ran danger of being arrested for a spy; and if this was so, he knew that they would most certainly search his pockets, and have him hanged when they found the letters which he carried. So in a little while he purposely let himself stumble into the ditch which ran by the wayside, and as he fell he cried out loudly: "Mercy, soldiers, mercy! My leg is broken, and now I cannot walk any more. You must let me get up into the cart with the girls!" But to this he knew that the jealous sergeant would never consent. The girls, meanwhile, cried out from the carts: "Come, come, jolly pilgrim, and we will succour you, and caress and make much of you, and cure you all in a day." "I know it," said Ulenspiegel, "for a woman's hand is balm celestial for all and every wound." But the jealous sergeant consulted with Monsieur de Lamotte, saying: "Sir, I suspect that this pilgrim is playing some trick upon us with his tale of a broken leg. All he wants is to have the chance of getting up into the cart with the girls. Order him rather to be left behind on the road." "Very well," answered Monsieur de Lamotte. So Ulenspiegel was left where he was in the ditch. Some soldiers, who really believed that his leg was broken, were sorry for him because of his gaiety, and they left with him a two days' ration of food and wine. And the girls would have got down and run to his assistance, but as this was forbidden they threw him all that was left of their castrelins. As soon as the soldiers had disappeared in the distance Ulenspiegel, still in his pilgrim's dress, recovered his liberty, purchased a horse, and rode like the wind by roads and by-paths to Bois-le-Duc.