any dark-looking faces of very
scowling aspect, for the Swedes were encamped before Freiberg in no
rose-garden; but after all he could not make out any very great
difference between the Swedish and Saxon fighting-men.

'I can see one thing very plainly,' said Conrad to himself, 'soldiers
are all as much alike as one egg is like another. One wears a grey
coat, another a red one, and another a green one, and that's about all
the difference between them.'

He was suddenly interrupted in the midst of his reflections by the
approach of a trooper, who came towards him with some appearance of
curiosity, and with a single glance of his piercing eyes threw the
boy's whole soul into a state of panic fear.

'God be with me!' murmured Conrad. 'That's the fierce Swede with the
red beard again. I am sure he is taking out a pistol now to make sure
of getting a good aim at me this time!'

Happily, his fears were not of long duration, for a sudden call in good
German of, 'Hillner, the major wants you,' relieved him of the Swede's
presence. 'Hillner!' whispered Conrad to himself. 'I wonder whether
everybody with black hair and a red beard is called Hillner.'

The lad was now summoned to appear before Field-Marshal Torstenson.
This was worse than his worst expectations; for was not this man the
cause of all the trouble, the scourge that with its thousand lashes was
tormenting the Saxon land? Conrad stepped trembling into the hall of
the Bergwald Hospital, where he found a group of superior officers
gathered round their general, who sat by a window with Conrad's
safe-conduct in his hand. This, then, was the man whose hand played
with the lives and property of so many thousand people. From just
inside the door where he had to stand, Conrad stared with beating heart
at the dreadful man who had conquered great armies, plundered and
wasted whole countries, taken strongholds by storm, and was now
conquered himself. For a shaft was quivering in his flesh that he
could by no means draw out; his foot was, so to speak, stung by a
glowing needle that could never be cooled, and that no medicine could
heal. In the olden times men were laid on the torture-bench that they
might be forced to confess their evil deeds; and God Himself sometimes
uses pain to bring a sinner to repentance, when he has turned a deaf
ear to all the voices of conscience and religion.

Torstenson, a man scarcely forty years of age, was seated in an
arm-chair. He