Sperver had filled the "wieder komm," the "come again," with old
wine of Brumberg; the sparkling froth fringed its ample borders; he
presented it to me, saying--
"Drink the health of Yeri-Hans, lord of Nideck. Drink to the last drop,
and show them that you mean it!"
Which was done.
Then he filled it again, and repeating with a voice that re-echoed among
the old walls, "To the recovery of my noble master, the high and mighty
lord of Nideck," he drained it also.
Then a feeling of satisfied repletion stole gently over us, and we felt
pleased with everything.
I fell back in my chair, with my face directed to the ceiling, and my
arms hanging lazily down. I began dreamily to consider what sort of a
place I had got into.
It was a low vaulted ceiling cut out of the live rock, almost
oven-shaped, and hardly twelve feet high at the highest point. At the
farther end I saw a sort of deep recess where lay my bed on the ground,
and consisting, as I thought I could see, of a huge bear-skin above, and
I could not tell what below, and within this yet another smaller niche
with a figure of the Virgin Mary carved out of the same granite, and
crowned with a bunch of withered grass.
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