last time
in this world. From that date, he has vanished suddenly underground,
in an inscrutable manner: never more shall the light of the sun, or any
human eye behold that handsome blackguard man. Not for a hundred and
fifty years shall human creatures know, or guess with the smallest
certainty, what has become of him.

And shortly after Konigsmark's disappearance, there is this sad
phenomenon visible: A once very radiant Princess (witty, haughty-minded,
beautiful, not wise or fortunate) now gone all ablaze into angry tragic
conflagration; getting locked into the old Castle of Ahlden, in the
moory solitudes of Luneburg Heath: to stay there till she die,--thirty
years as it proved,--and go into ashes and angry darkness as she may.
Old peasants, late in the next century, will remember that they used
to see her sometimes driving on the Heath,--beautiful lady, long black
hair, and the glitter of diamonds in it; sometimes the reins in her own
hand, but always with a party of cavalry round her, and their swords
drawn. [_ Die Herzogin von Ahlden _ (Leipzig, 1852), p. 22. Divorce was,
28th December, 1694; death, 13th November, 1726,--age then 60.] "Duchess
of Ahlden," that was her title in the eclipsed state. Born Princess of
Zelle; by marriage, Princess of Hanover (_ Kurprinzessin _); would
have been Queen of England, too, had matters gone otherwise than they
did.--Her name, like that of a little Daughter she had, is Sophie
Dorothee: she is Cousin and Divorced Wife of Kurprinz George; divorced,
and as it were abolished alive, in this manner. She is little Friedrich
Wilhelm's Aunt-in-law; and her little Daughter comes to be his Wife in
process of time. Of him, or of those belonging to him, she took small
notice, I suppose, in her then mood, the crisis coming on so fast. In
her happier innocent days she had two children, a King that is to be,
and a Queen; George II. of England, Sophie Dorothee of Prussia; but must
not now call them hers, or ever see them again.

This was the Konigsmark tragedy at Hanover; fast ripening towards its
catastrophe while little Friedrich Wilhelm was there. It has been, ever
since, a rumor and dubious frightful mystery to mankind: but within
these few years, by curious accidents (thefts, discoveries of written
documents, in various countries, and diligent study of them), it has at
length become a certainty and clear fact, to those who are curious about
it. Fact surely of a rather horrible sort;--yet