."

"No," answered Cagliostro, mournfully, "we are poorer than ever. This
money makes us slaves, makes us dependent tools. Did you not hear him
say, 'You are admitted into the Temple, but the avenging sword of the
order everywhere hangs over you.'"

CHAPTER XIII. A PENSIONED GENERAL.

"Wife," cried the General von Werrig, limping around the room, leaning
upon his crutch, "here is the answer from our most gracious lord and
king. The courier arrived to-day from the war department, and sent it to
me by an express."

"What is the king's answer?" asked the general's wife, a pale, gaunt
woman, with a pock-marked face, harsh, severe features, dull gray eyes,
which never beamed with emotion, and thin, bloodless lips, upon which
a smile never played. "What is the king's answer?" she repeated, in
a rough voice, as her husband, puffing and blowing from the effort of
walking, sank down upon a chair, and dried his fat, ruby face with a red
cotton pocket-handkerchief.

"I have not read it," panted the old man. "I thought I would leave the
honor to you, as you, my very learned wife, wrote the letter to his
majesty."

His wife was not in the least astonished at this thoughtful conduct of
her husband. She impetuously seized the sealed document, and, retiring
to the window-niche, slowly unfolded it, whilst the old general fixed
his little gray eyes upon her emotionless face. His own was bloated and
red, expressing the greatest anxiety and expectation. Perfect stillness
reigned for some minutes, only the regular strokes of the pendulum
were heard from the clock on the wall; and, as the hands pointed to the
expiration of the hour, a cuckoo sprang out of the tree painted over the
dial, and eleven times her hoarse, croaking voice was heard.

"It gets every day more out of tune," growled the general, as he
looked up to the old, yellow dial, and ran his eye over the cords which
supported the weights. Then glancing around the room, he saw everywhere
age, decay, and indigence. There was an old divan, with a patched, faded
covering of silk, and a grandfather's arm-chair near it, the cushion of
which the general knew, by the long years of experience, to be hard as a
stone. A round table stood near the divan, covered with a shabby woollen
cover, to hide the much-thumbed, dull polish. A few cane-chairs against
the wall, an old black-oak wardrobe near the door, and the sewing-table
of Madame von Werrig in the window-niche, completed t