ately beat joyously with twofold
rapidity and then contract in pain till it seemed to stop. The
situation now seemed to him critical and, glancing around, he found the
same feeling expressed in the looks and faces of the other officers.
But the colonel had already beckoned to his orderly and sprung into the
saddle. The trumpets sounded the first signal, a sudden movement ran
through the ranks of the dragoons, in an instant all were in the
saddle, sabre-sheaths clanked against stirrups, the chains and bars of
the bits rattled as the horses tossed their heads, then there was a
second blare of trumpets, a shrill neighing, a loud snorting, the
pawing and stamping of hoofs, swords flew from their sheaths, and the
troop of horsemen was in motion.

Prince Louis looked at his watch--it was half-past six o'clock. As, at
the head of the first squadron, he rode a short distance behind the
colonel, the aides of the regiment, and the trumpeters, a strange mood
which he had never before experienced came over him. The painful
excitement and quivering impatience, which, during the last half-hour,
had made his veins throb to his finger-tips, merged into a joyous
consciousness of purposeful activity, which restored his calmness. Now
he no longer reflected and criticised. It seemed as if the doubting
spirit had been driven out of him and he was obeying eagerly,
confidently, and devoutly as a child a command which filled his whole
being with an overwhelming desire to press forward. This man, so proud
of his personality, who had always sought his happiness in the
unrestricted exercise of his individuality, now felt his ego shrivel
until it was imperceptible. He was only a tiny stone in a piece of
mosaic, which formed a noble masterpiece only as a whole. A mighty
power, call it a law of nature or the will, whose manifestation is the
history of the world, had entered into and taken complete possession of
him. It was not he who now directed his fate, it was decided by some
unknown being outside of him. Had he been the most remarkable human
being on earth, a Newton, a Goethe, nay, the Saviour Himself, he would
now have weighed no more in the balance than the nameless Brandenberg
farm-hand by his side, he would now have had in the mechanism of the
world only the value of a dozen screws or rivets. And, strangely
enough, this merging of his individuality into a whole, as a crystal of
sugar dissolves in water, awakened neither discomfor