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46 Under the guidance of these invisible protectors, and accompanied by the fervent wishes of his darling Mela, Frank in the mean time pursued his way towards Antwerp, where the principal debtors of his father resided, and where he hoped to recover several not inconsiderable sums. A journey from Bremen to Antwerp was, in those times, more dangerous than a journey from Bremen to Kamschatka at present. The general peace which the emperor Maximilian had proclaimed throughout the empire, was then very little observed, and the highways were infested in every part with nobles and knights, who waylaid and despoiled those travellers who did not purchase from them a permission to travel in safety, and who not unfrequently condemned the victims of their rapacity to a lingering death, in the subterraneous dungeons of their castles. Our solitary rider succeeded however in spite of all these dangers in reaching the end of his journey, without meeting any, save the following adventure.

While travelling over the sandy and thinly peopled plains of Westphalia, he was overtaken by night before he could reach any