about noon
He afterwards gained over some of the Tronkenburg servants , who were discontented with the squire , and tempted by the prospect of booty , wished to enter his service . These he armed after the fashion of infantry with daggers and cross-bars , teaching them to sit behind the servants on horseback . After having turned into money all that the troops had raked together , and divided the money among them , he rested from his sad occupation for some hours , under the gate of the castle . Herse returned about noon , and confirmed the gloomy suspicions , which he had already felt in his heart , namely , that the squire was in the convent at Erlabrunn , with his aunt , the lady Antonia von Tronka . He had , it appeared , slipped through a door at the back of the castle , which led into the open air , and gone down a narrow flight of stone steps , which , under a little roof , went down to some boats in the Elbe . At least Herse told him that about midnight he reached a village on the Elbe in a boat without a rudder , to the astonishment of the people , who were collected together on account of the fire at the Tronkenburg , and that he had proceeded to Erlabrunn in a waggon . Kohlhaas sighed deeply at this intelligence ; he asked whether the horses had had their feed , and when his men answered in the affirmative , he ordered the whole troop to mount , and in three hours was before Erlabrunn .