ave remained there for
the last two years, and served my benefactor in the capacity of
book-keeper. Under these circumstances, I leave it for your sense of
justice to decide whether I can be considered a prisoner of war.'

'Or spy?' asked the duke.

'My free passport remains with the commandant of the city,' answered
Dorn.

'What was your object in coming to head quarters?' asked the duke.

'To bring a scholar from Schweidnitz,' answered Dorn, for your
school at Gitschin, and to take back to Schweidnitz my employer's
mother-in-law and her daughter.'

'Prove it!' cried the examiner.

'Send to the merchant Engelmann,' said Dorn; 'who must have left his
prison last evening; and Madam Rosen must yet have the letter which she
wrote to Schweidnitz and which I brought back to her as my credential.'

'Here is the unlucky letter,' sobbed the trembling widow, handing it to
the duke on bended knee.

He took it, read, and turned towards the captain.

'We have your portrait here,' said he; 'not flattered, but well drawn.
Did you know the object of his coming here?'

The captain replied only by stammering some unintelligible words.

'He wished to prevent their departure,' said Dorn.

'To know and keep silence, is called lying!' observed the duke, with
anger. Then to Dorn, 'you have, however, abused the emperor!'

'That is not true!' cried the latter with vehemence. 'He drank the
emperor's health with the captain!' cried the trembling Faith,
encouraged by her anxiety for the youth. 'I and my mother are
witnesses, and because he drank the emperor's health, the captain
pretended that he had enlisted for a soldier.'

'Shame upon you!' thundered the duke. 'Has a lord who has all Europe
for a recruiting ground, need of such miserable devices?'

'Here is a heretic conspiracy,' cried the captain, 'planned for my
destruction. This woman is secretly a Lutheran, together with her
daughter. Already have I twice watched their stolen attendance upon the
preacher of Eckensdorf. For that reason they have called the
Mannsfelder here, that he may take them to heretical Schweidnitz, where
they can practise their idolatry undisturbedly; and because, out of
zeal for the true faith, I wished to prevent their heathenish
abominations, I am calumniated by the apostate women and their
accomplice.'

'Heap not new insults upon us,' cried Dorn, forgetting in whose
presence he stood. 'You know that you yet owe me satisfaction for those
of las