“And now,” murmured Gabriel Nietzel to himself, as he stepped out upon the street “now for work, without hesitancy and without delay, for there is no other way of escaping from that cruel tiger who has me in his clutches. He is athirst for blood, and I must sacrifice to him the blood of another man in order to save that of my wife and child! But, woe to him, woe, if he does not keep his word, if he acts the part of traitor toward me! But I will not think of that, I dare not think of it, for I have need of all my presence of mind in order to prepare everything. First, I must speak to the Electoral Prince; that is the most important thing.”

He went back to Berlin, and repaired forthwith to the palace. The Electoral Prince was at home, and the lackey who had announced the court painter Gabriel Nietzel now reverentially opened for him the door of the princely apartment.

“Well, here you are, my dear Gabriel,” cried the Electoral Prince affably. “Welcome, to receive my thanks for the zeal and dispatch with which you attended to the removal of my effects. Truly you merit praise, for I am told that you arrived in Berlin before me. We had contrary winds, it is true, and had to lie at anchor before Cuxhaven for fourteen days. Well, say, master, how are you pleased with Berlin?”

“Very well, your highness,” replied Nietzel gloomily, looking into the pale, sad countenance of the Electoral Prince with a glance full of strange meaning.

“Why do you look so inquiringly at me, master?” asked the Prince restively.

“Pardon me, most gracious sir, I will not do so again,” said Gabriel, casting down his eyes. “I have something to say to your highness, and I would fain gather the needed courage therefore from your countenance.”

“Do so then, master, look at me and speak.”

“Step into the middle of the room, gracious sir, and permit me to come close to you; then I will speak, for I shall know then that no one can overhear us.”

The Electoral Prince did as Gabriel requested. The latter stepped close up to his side. “Most gracious sir,” said he, “have you confidence in me?”

“Yes, Gabriel Nietzel, I have confidence in you.”

“Then hear what I have to tell you. Ask no questions, require no intelligence and explanations. Hear my warning, and act accordingly. Count Schwarzenberg plots against your life!”

“Do you believe that?” said the Electoral Prince, smiling.

“He has invited you to a feast, which is to take place on Sunday. At that feast you are to be poisoned.”

The Electoral Prince started, and a transient flush gleamed upon his cheeks. “Whence know you that, Gabriel Nietzel?”

“I beseech you ask me no questions, but believe me. Will your highness do so? dare I speak further?”

“Well, I will believe you. Speak further, Master Gabriel.”

“I told you thus much, that you were to be poisoned at Count Adam von Schwarzenberg’s banquet. The count’s valet has been bribed by him; he will have the honor of waiting upon you at the feast, and he will therefore present to you all you eat or drink, even down to the bread. Do not accept them from him, your highness, especially the bread.”

“I shall at least eat nothing, Gabriel Nietzel.”

“When he sees that, he will offer you some fruit or viand which will prove hurtful to you. The count’s valet must not stand behind your seat, that is the principal thing; another must take his place, another, on whose fidelity you may rely.”

“Who is that other? Where is the man to be found in these parts on whose fidelity I may rely?”

“You may rely upon me, Prince. I will stand behind your chair, I will wait upon you at Count Schwarzenberg’s feast.”

“You, Gabriel Nietzel, you?” asked Frederick William, and his eyes were fixed upon the painter with a long glance of inquiry. Gabriel Nietzel sustained this glance, and succeeded in forcing a smile upon his lips.

“I will be your valet at the feast. I will stand behind your chair and wait upon you.”

“Impossible, Gabriel. How could we manage that without insulting the count?”

“Very simply, your highness. Have the kindness to say that you brought me with you, in order that I might make for you a painting of the banquet, and to that end sketch the outlines, and that, to furnish a pretext for my presence, you have allowed me to appear as your page.”

“It is true, that will suit! You have weighed all excellently, Gabriel Nietzel, and your plan is good.”

“And you accept it, gracious sir, do you not, you accept it?”

Frederick William was silent, and his large, deep-blue eyes were again fixed testingly and questioningly upon the painter’s countenance. After a long pause he slowly laid his hand upon Gabriel’s shoulder, and his looks brightened.

“Gabriel Nietzel,” he said solemnly, “I will have confidence in you, I will assume that God sends you to me to save me; I will not assume that Count Schwarzenberg sends you to me to ruin me. You shall accompany me to the feast and stand behind my chair as page.”

Gabriel Nietzel only answered by the tears, which in clear streams gushed from his eyes. “Oh, you weep,” cried the Electoral Prince. “Now I see well that you mean honestly, and that I can trust you, for your tears speak for you.”

Just then the lackey opened the door of the antechamber and announced, “The commandant of Kuestrin, Colonel von Burgsdorf, wishes to pay his respects!”

“Let him wait an instant; I will summon him directly.”

“Most gracious sir,” murmured Nietzel, when the door had again closed, “dismiss me in the colonel’s presence, and immediately, that the spies may not have it to say that there has been to-day a meeting, of Count Schwarzenberg’s enemies here.”

“Are there spies here too, Gabriel?”

“Everywhere, sir, each of your servants is bribed, and you must suspect them. Dismiss me, sir, dismiss me.”

The Electoral Prince went to the door and opened it.

“Colonel von Burgsdorf, come in!”

“Here I am, most gracious sir, here I am!” cried Burgsdorf’s rough voice, and with clashing sword and glittering corselet Conrad von Burgsdorf entered the room. The Electoral Prince nodded to him, and then turned to the painter, who humbly and with lowered head had crept away toward the door. “Master Nietzel,” he said, with a condescending wave of the hand, “go now, and be careful to carry out my instructions. I will request my mother to do me the kindness to sit to you every day for her portrait, which you are to paint for me. Make all your preparations, and come early to-morrow morning with the canvas stretched.”

“Your highness’s commands shall be punctually executed,” said Gabriel Nietzel, and, after reverentially bowing, he left the room.

“And now for you, my dear Burgsdorf!” cried the Electoral Prince, advancing a few paces to meet the colonel, and kindly offering him his hand. “You are heartily welcome, and let me hope that I, too, am welcome to you and your friends.”

“Your highness, you are more than welcome to us you have been longed for by us, and we thank God from the depths of our souls that he has finally given you back to us. All had already abandoned hope of your return to us. All really believed that you would forsake us in our wretchedness and want, and would never more return to the unhappy Mark of Brandenburg. But here you are at last, my dearest young sir, and blessed be your coming and your staying.”

“I thank you, colonel, thank you with my whole heart for your good wishes,” said Frederick William kindly; “and trust me, my dear colonel, I know how to treasure them, and will never forget you for these. You are one of the faithful ones, on whom our house can count in evil as in good days, and on whom an Elector of Brandenburg would never call in vain, if he had need of him.”

“Call upon us, most gracious sir,” said the colonel briskly and joyfully “call all your faithful ones, and you shall see they will all come, for they are only waiting for your summons.”

The Electoral Prince smilingly shook his head. “I am not the Elector of Brandenburg, and I have not the right to summon you.”

“You shall and must be Elector of Brandenburg, and that you may be so, you must gather your faithful ones around you.”

“I do not understand you,” said the Electoral Prince slowly. “Whether I will ever be Elector of Brandenburg, God only can decide, for in his hands lies my father’s life as well as my own. May the day be far distant when I enter upon the succession may my venerated father for long years to come rule his land in peace and tranquillity. I long not to grasp the reins of government, for I know very well that I am yet much too young to guide them with wisdom and prudence.”

“You will not understand me, your highness,” cried the colonel impatiently, and his red swollen face glowed with a brighter hue. “But I must still try to make you understand, for to that very end have I been sent hither by your friends; they have chosen me as spokesman for them all, and therefore I must speak, if your highness will grant me leave so to do.”

“Speak, my dear colonel, speak, and may God enlighten my heart, that I may rightly understand you! Let us sit down, colonel, and now let us hear what is the matter.”

“This is the matter, your highness, the Mark of Brandenburg is lost to you, if you do not seize it now with swift, determined hand. You do not believe me, sir; you shake your head incredulously and smile. Ah! I see plainly, that you have been suffered to remain in great darkness as regards the situation of affairs here, and you know very little of our sufferings and our distresses. You know not that poverty and want prevail throughout the whole land; that the peasant, the burgher, the nobleman, all classes of the people, in short, are equally oppressed; that trade and commerce lie prostrate; and the aim of each one is only how he may prolong a wretched existence from day to day.”

“Nevertheless, my dear colonel, I know that. I saw enough solitary, ruined villages, waste and empty towns, uncultivated and ravaged fields on my journey hither to prove to me what the poor inhabitants of the Mark have had to suffer in these evil days of war.”

“Have had to suffer, says your highness?” cried Burgsdorf impatiently; “they still suffer continuously, and their suffering will be without cessation or end if your highness does not take pity upon the poor people, upon us all.”

“I?” asked Frederick William, astonished. “What then can I do?”

“You can do everything, my Prince, everything, and in the name of your future country, in the name of your subjects, I beseech you to do so. The Mark Brandenburg stands upon the brink of a precipice. Save it, Electoral Prince. The religion, policy, and independence of Brandenburg are in danger; take your sword in hand and save her. Speak three words, three little insignificant words, and all the noblemen in the Mark will rally exultingly about you, and the people will flock to you in crowds, and make you so mighty and so strong that you need only to will and your will shall be executed.”

“What three words are those, Sir Colonel von Burgsdorf?”

“Those three words, your highness, which the people shouted up at the palace window yesterday, when you got home. The three words, ’Down with him!’”

“Down with him,” repeated the Electoral Prince. “And who is this him?”

“It is Count Schwarzenberg, your highness it is the minister who rules here in the Mark as if it were his own property, and as if he were not your father’s Stadtholder, but the reigning Prince, who had obtained the Mark as a fief from the Emperor of Germany, to whom alone he were responsible. Look about you, Frederick William, look at these poor, wretched apartments, in which you live look at the decay of the princely house, the embarrassments with which your father has to contend, and the privations which your mother and sisters have to undergo. And then, Prince, then look across at Broad Street, at Count Schwarzenberg’s palace. There all is glory and splendor, there are to be seen lackeys in golden liveries, costly équipages, handsomely furnished halls. They practice wanton luxury, they live amid pomp and pleasure, arrange magnificent hunts and splendid entertainments, while the people cry out for hunger. They make merry in Count Schwarzenberg’s palace, and while the burgher, whose last cent he has seized for the payment of taxes and imposts, creeps about in rags, he struts by in velvet clothes, decked out with gold and precious stones, and laughingly boasts that half the Mark of Brandenburg might be bought at the price of one of his court suits. Most gracious Prince, yesterday the steward of your father, with the Electoral consent, brought out the velvet caps which had been kept in the Electoral wardrobe, took off the genuine silver lace with which they were trimmed, and sold it to the Jews, in order to pay the servants their month’s wages, and the count’s servants yesterday received new liveries, so thickly set with gold lace that the scarlet cloth was hardly distinguishable underneath. The Stadtholder in the Mark revels in superfluity, while the Elector in the Mark almost suffers want, and esteems himself happy if he can give one piece of land after another to his minister as security for the payment of debt. Oh, it is enough to drive one to despair, and make him tear his hair for rage and grief, when he sees the state of things here, and must perceive that the Elector is nothing and the Stadtholder everything. To his adherents he gives offices and dignities, and those whom he knows to be attached to the interests of the Electoral family he removes from court, and replaces by his favorites and servants. Upon the Colonels von Kracht and von Rochow he has bestowed good positions, making them commandants of Berlin and Spandow, with double salaries, but me, whom he knows to be the faithful servant of the Electoral family, he has banished from court and sent to Kuestrin with only half as high a salary as the other two have. From the Electoral privy council he has also removed all those gentlemen who were bold enough to lift up their voices against him, and has introduced such men as say yes to everything that he desires and asks. No longer does an honest, upright word reach the Electoral ear, and while the whole people lament and cry out against Schwarzenberg, fearing him as they do the devil himself, our Elector fancies that his Stadtholder is as much beloved by the people of the Mark Brandenburg as by the Emperor at Vienna. But it is just so; Catholics and Imperialists will Schwarzenberg make us; ever he presses us further and further from our comrades in the faith, the Swedes and Dutch; ever he draws us closer to the Catholics; and if he could succeed in making the Elector Catholic, removing all Evangelists and Reformers from court, and putting Catholics in their places, then he would rejoice and obtain a high reward from the Emperor and Pope.”

“And you believe, Burgsdorf, that he will do such a thing, and esteem such a thing possible?” asked the Electoral Prince, with a sly smile.

“I believe that he will, and we all believe so. And with the Stadtholder to will is to do, for he carries through all that he undertakes. But we will not suffer it, Prince, we will not be turned into Imperialists and Catholics. We will hold to our Elector and our religion; we will not suffer and submit to our Elector’s being any longer in dependence upon Emperor and empire, and nothing at all but a powerless tool in Schwarzenberg’s hands. We want a free Elector, who has courage and power to defy the Emperor himself, and league himself with the Swedes against him. For the Swedes are our rightful allies, not merely because the mother of the little Queen Christina is sister to our Elector, but also because we are neighbors, and of one religion and one faith. Oh, my gracious young sir, do not allow Schwarzenberg to make us Catholics and Imperialists! Free your country, your subjects, and yourself from this man, who weighs upon us like a scourge from God!”

“But, Burgsdorf, just consider what you say there. I, who have but just returned from a three years’ absence, I, who am almost a stranger to these combinations and circumstances, I am to free you from this most mighty and influential man, the Stadtholder in the Mark! I should like to know how to go about it.”

“Gracious sir, I will tell you,” replied Burgsdorf, with smothered voice and coming close up to the Prince. “Only say that you will place yourself at our head; give me only a couple of words in your own handwriting to give assurance to your friends and adherents that you will at their head battle for your good rights and for the faith and law of the land. Do this, and then just wait eight days.”

“And what will happen after these eight days?”

“Then will happen that you shall see an army assembled about you, my Prince, in eight days. We have all been long making our preparations in secret, and putting everything in position, to be able to break forth as soon as you should appear and place yourself at our head. Every nobleman belonging to our party has procured arms and ammunition for the equipment of his people, and a brave, well-appointed host will be ready to execute your orders. You will take Schwarzenberg prisoner in his proud palace; you will be able by persistency to drive the Elector to dismiss the hated minister and his hated son from their offices and dignities, and to banish them forever from the country. You will be able to force the Elector to nominate you Schwarzenberg’s successor, and then, having the power in your own hands, it only depends upon yourself to break, with the Emperor, to recognize the peace of Prague no longer, but to renew the alliance with the Swedes, and united with them to battle against the encroachments of the Emperor, and in behalf of religion!”

“Just see, colonel, you have your plan already cut and dried!” cried the Prince. “If I should accede to it I would have nothing further to do than to execute what you have previously determined and arranged, and I should be nothing more than a tool in your hands. Now, I must confess to you that such a part would not at all suit me, even if I were ready to fall in with your plans. But I am not ready to do so, and am thoroughly indisposed to accept your proposition.”

“You are not inclined to do so?” asked the colonel, shocked. “Not even,” he continued more softly, “when I tell you that the Electress knows our plans and consents to them?”

“Not even then, colonel. However much I love my mother, yet in this matter I can not suffer myself to be guided by her wishes. No, Colonel von Burgsdorf, I am not minded to go into your plans; for have you well considered what you require of me? You ask me to head a revolution, to give you a deed of rebellion, and to call upon the noblemen of the country to revolt against their rightful Sovereign. You ask me, as a rebel and agitator, and yet at the same time only as your tool, to do force and violence to my lord and father, and to force him to dismiss his minister, to alter his system, and to make enemies of his friends and friends of his enemies. Truly, you offer me a great advantage in prospective, and are good enough to propose that I step into Count Schwarzenberg’s place and rule the country in the Elector’s name, as he has done. But I am not blind to my own shortcomings, and do not overestimate myself. I know very well that I am as yet but an inexperienced young man, who has still a great deal to learn, and is by no means in a position to take the place of so distinguished and adroit a statesman as Count Schwarzenberg. I must yet go to school to him, and learn from him statecraft and policy.”

“Will you learn from him, gracious sir?” cried Burgsdorf passionately, “would you go to school to him, to that Catholic, that Imperialist?”

“Tell me a better schoolmaster for my father’s son?” asked the Electoral Prince softly. “My father has bestowed full confidence upon him for these twenty years past, he has adhered firmly and faithfully to him in evil as well as in prosperous days, and therefore I conclude that the count is worthy of this unshaken confidence, and must well deserve his master’s love. It would, therefore, be very disrespectful behavior on my part toward my father, and put me in the light of exalting myself against him in unchildlike disobedience, if I should make the attempt to remove Count Schwarzenberg from his side by force. The Elector alone is reigning Sovereign within his own dominions, and what he concludes must be good, and it does not become us to censure or presume to know better.”

“Your grace, then, will be nothing but an obedient and submissive son?” asked Burgsdorf in a cutting tone.

“Nothing further, Burgsdorf,” replied Frederick William quietly. “May my father yet live to rule long years in peace; I am still young, I am learning and waiting.”

“You are learning and waiting,” cried Burgsdorf, beside himself, “and meanwhile your land is going wholly to ruin; the people are hungry and in despair; the noblemen are reduced to beggary or have, in their desperation, gone over to Schwarzenberg that is to say, to the Emperor who pays a rich annuity to each one who adheres faithfully to him. And when your grace has waited and learned enough, then will come the day when Count Schwarzenberg will hunt you from your heritage, even as he has hunted the Margrave of Jaegerndorf; then will the Emperor give the Mark Brandenburg away, as he has done with Jaegerndorf, and his favorite, Schwarzenberg, is here ready to receive the welcome donation. He has already ruled the Mark Brandenburg twenty years in the Emperor’s name, why should he not rule the Mark as its independent Sovereign? Oh, gracious sir, it makes me raving mad just to think of it, and I can not believe that you are in earnest, that you actually thrust from you myself and those loyal to you, and will not enter into our plans. My dear Prince, I have known you all your life. I have carried you in my arms as a little boy; I have borne you under my cloak when you went with your mother to Kuestrin; I have staked upon you all the hopes of my life; and it would be a bitter grief to me to be obliged to think that you will have nothing to do with me and all your friends.”

“And think you, man,” asked the Electoral Prince, “that it would be no grief to my father if I should step forward as his adversary? Think you that it would make for him a good name in history should the son present himself as his father’s enemy? No, Burgsdorf; I repeat it to you, I am learning and waiting.”

“And I? I have waited twenty years, to learn in this hour that all my waiting has been in vain. The Mark is lost, and you, Electoral Prince, with it. I shall tell your mother, I shall tell your friends, that you are lost to us. Farewell, sir, and, if you will, go to Count Schwarzenberg and tell him that I am a traitor and conspirator. I shall go back to Kuestrin, and if I were not ashamed, I could weep over myself and you. No, I am not ashamed; look, sir, at least you have constrained me.”

And the tears gushed from his eyes and fell down upon his grizzly, gray beard. He clapped his hands before his face and sobbed aloud. The Electoral Prince turned pale. He fixed a glance full of confidence and love upon the colonel, and had already opened his lips for an answer, which he would probably have afterward repented, when Burgsdorf suddenly drew his hands from before his face and angrily shook his head.

“I am a fool!” he said furiously, “and it would serve me right, old baby that I am, if you should laugh at me. Farewell!”

He made a formal military salute, turned abruptly and crossed the apartment to the door. Now, when his hand was already upon the latch, the Electoral Prince made a few steps forward. Colonel Burgsdorf turned about.

“Did you call me, sir?”

“No, colonel, farewell!”

The door closed, and Frederick William was alone. His large blue eyes were directed toward heaven with a look of inexpressible grief.

“I have in this hour offered up a greater sacrifice than Abraham, when he sacrificed his son to his God,” he whispered. “Has God accepted my sacrifice, will he in his mercy some day reward me for it?”