"Look, Bertha! dost see three strange figures coming along there?" she asked in a low tone, pointing toward the road. Bertha looked. It was true: three men, in black, of sinister appearance, were coming toward them. The pair watched.
"Who are they?" she repeated, still in low and half-frightened tones.
"I have seen them before," Bertha answered. "It is said that they are saintly men, but they look sinister to me."
By this time the men had been joined by many of the peasants and were approaching the castle. They were Jonas, Mathison, and Zacharia, seditionists; but they were going through the country in the garb of holy men, stirring up the people under cover of saintliness.
They preached to the people the most absurd doctrines; that they would have all the lands and castles of the nobles if they should rise up and rebel against the system of vassalage that then prevailed. They lacked a leader, however, in order to make their work successful. Now they had come to Dordrecht and were approaching the castle of the Count of Oberthal. All the peasants got into a frightful tangle of trouble and riot, and they called and hammered at the Count's doors till he and his retainers came out.
"What is all this noise?" he demanded, and as he spoke, he recognized in Jonas, the leader of the Anabaptists, a servant whom he had discharged for thievery. He at once told the peasants of this, and it turned them against the three strangers and stopped the disturbance, but at the back of the crowd the Count Oberthal had seen the beautiful Bertha and Faith.
"What do ye do here?" he asked, curiously but kindly, noticing the beauty of Bertha. At that she went toward him.
"I wish to ask you, Seigneur, for leave to marry outside your domain. I love John of Leyden, the innkeeper--this is his mother--and she has come to take me home with her, if I may go." She spoke modestly, never thinking but she would be permitted to leave. But Oberthal looked at her admiringly and decided that he would have her for himself. Then thinking of her love, she began to sing of how John had once saved her life, and Faith joined her in pleading.
One day in the waves of the Meuse I struggled I struggled John, John saved me--]