hall be glad
to have you visit me soon again."

He shook hands with me again, and I was about to withdraw in silence,
when a lackey entered and said that a daughter of mine had requested to
see the Prince, and begged that she might speak with me in his
presence.

"Let her enter. You had better remain here, Herr Waldfried."

CHAPTER VII.

The door was opened and in rushed Martella, who threw herself on her
knees at the Prince's feet and exclaimed: "Your Highness, Prince by the
grace of God, be gracious and merciful! Give me my betrothed, my Ernst!
I shall not rise from this spot until you have restored him to me
again!"

The Prince gazed at me in surprise, and I told him that this was
Ernst's betrothed.

The Prince extended his hand to Martella. She kissed it and covered it
with tears, when he said to her:

"I shall do all that I can."

"Oh, God is gracious to you! you are all-powerful. O how happy you are
that you can do all these things! I knew it!"

The Prince said that he was occupied at the moment; that she might go,
and he would attend to all that was necessary afterwards.

"No, no!" cried Martella; "not so. I shall not leave in that way. Now
is the right time. Let the whole world wait until this is done."

"I have already informed his father that the deserter will receive but
a mild punishment, if he now returns and helps us to fight for our
Fatherland."

"Yes, yes; I believe all that; but I must have it in writing, with a
great seal under it, or else it is of no avail, and your subordinates
will not respect it.

"O Prince! the winter before the fearful war you were hunting in the
district to which my Ernst belonged, and he had much to tell me about
you; and he said that, if one considered how you had been spoiled, it
was wonderful to find our Prince so well behaved, so just and upright a
man.

"And Rothfuss said, 'In such a war as that of 1866, the Prince would
have been just as willing to desert as Ernst was, if he only could have
done so; but he could not get away.'"

The Prince gave me a look full of meaning, while a sad smile played on
his lips. Suddenly he turned to Martella and asked, "And do you know
where your lover is?"

"Yes; he is with the savages in Algiers. He, too, was a savage, but, by
this time, he must have become tamed. O Prince! give me the writing,
and what you write will be set down to your credit in heaven!"

The Prince seated him