ou!" whispered the lawyer, and started to kiss Michael
Petroff's hand.

"Oh no! Why should you?" said Michael Petroff, but he felt pleased and
flattered.

The lawyer was calmer as he turned away. But in the night he heard
Engelhardt crying out and crept under the bedclothes with his teeth
chattering. It seemed to him as if he were buried in the ground, on a
high mountain and he scarcely dared to breathe for fear. But just then
he saw an enormous flock of birds flying swiftly over the sky in a
gentle curve. He beckoned to them and called out: "Where are you
going?"--"Come too, come too!" chirped the birds in answer. "To Vienna,
to Vienna!" and they flew away in the distance. The lawyer gazed after
them and fell asleep.

The "Rajah's" strength failed visibly, although artificial nourishment
was given him, by Dr. Maerz's orders. He was fading away as fast as
twilight in the tropics. His brown face and hands had taken on a dull
gray hue, like dry garden earth, and his broad and powerful chest rose
and sank rapidly and silently under the bedclothes. His eyelids, which
were paler than his face, drooped so as to half cover his eyes, but as
soon as any one entered the room, they opened slowly, and his large,
brilliant eyes rested questioningly on the newcomer.

His pulse was growing weak and rapid, and Dr. Maerz sat almost
constantly at the sick man's bedside. The rapid loss of strength was
incomprehensible to the Doctor, and the inexplicable and rapid decline
of the heart action caused especial anxiety. He sat there, closing his
eyes from time to time, observed the patient, considered, tried all
conceivable means--and by evening he knew that the "Rajah" was beyond
all human aid.

"How is he, Doctor?" asked Michael Petroff, who had been watching for
the Doctor in the corridor, and nodded his head toward the "Rajah's"
door.

"Oh, not so badly off!" answered Dr. Maerz absentmindedly.

Michael Petroff laughed softly behind his back. Then he went at once to
the lawyer's room.

"The 'Rajah' is dying!" he said with a triumphant glance.

The lawyer looked up at him timidly; he did not answer.

"Yes!" Michael Petroff sat down in a cane-seated chair, and drew up his
trousers a little, so as not to get them out of shape at the knees. "I
asked the Doctor just now. He answered: 'Not so badly off.' Now that
means that the 'Rajah' is dying. When Heinrich was dying, Heinrich who
used to sing the jolly songs that you laughed at so