Greusel and Ebearhard left them there in the height of great
enjoyment, all the more delightful after the hunger and fatigue they had
encountered, for the three and a half leagues had proved almost without
a single stretch of level land. The two officers inquired for Roland,
without success, at the various houses of entertainment which
Assmannshausen boasted, then canvassed every home in the village, but no
one had seen anything of the man they described.
Coming out to the river front, deeply discouraged, the two gazed across
the empty water, from which all enlivening traffic had departed. It was
now evident to both that Roland had not entered Assmannshausen, for in
so small and gossipy a hamlet no stranger could even have passed through
without being observed.
"Well, Joseph," asked Ebearhard, "what do you intend to do?"
"There is nothing to do but to wait until our money is gone. It is
absolutely certain that Roland is not here. Can it be possible that
after all he returned?"
"How could he have done so? We know him to have been without money;
therefore why to Frankfort, even if such a trip were possible for a
penniless man?"
"I am sorry now," said Greusel despondently, "that I did not follow a
suggestion that occurred to me, which was to take the men direct down
the valley where we encamped, to the banks of the Rhine, and there make
inquiries.
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