Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/230

 light penetrated very dimly through the grating of a small window in a thick wall. Without being positively certain about the matter, he seemed to have some recollection of the place; he impatiently awaited a visit from the gaoler, but some hours elapsed, and no one came near him. Hunger and thirst beginning to torment him, he set to work making all the noise he could, shaking his chains, dashing them against the walls, and shouting with all his might. He heard human voices outside, but no one for a long time dared to come in; at last the gaoler, having said the usual prayer for driving away evil spirits, threw open the door, and brandishing a great cross, slowly advanced, reciting the office for exorcising the devil, deeming that it could be no other that was making all this racket in the prison; but on taking a nearer view of the apparition, he recognized his former prisoner, the cut-purse; and Kunz, on his part, beheld the gaoler of Liegnitz. He now perceived that Rubezahl had remanded him to the place whence he came. “Thou here?” exclaimed the gaoler, almost as much afraid of his mysterious prisoner as of the personage he had expected to find; “how got’st thou entrance?”—“By the door,” replied Kunz, coolly. “Weary of rambling about the world, I am desirous of leading a quiet life, and, as thou see’st, have returned to my old quarters, where, by your leave,