his incubus from his
breast, and with a voice loud and powerful as thunder to cry out for
help and succor. His voice was heard; it reached the ear of General
Bachmann, who came in person to set free the wild young officer, the
favorite of his empress, from the hands of the Austrians.

This adventure, which had terminated so famously, Count Brenda now
related to his friends and comrades. To be sure, the general had
punished the mad freak with an arrest of four-and-twenty hours. But
after undergoing this punishment, he was more than ever the hero of
the day, the idol of his comrades, who now celebrated his release
from arrest with loud rejoicing and the cracking of champagne bottles.
After they had laughed and joked to their satisfaction, they resorted
to the dice.

"And what stake shall we play for?" asked Feodor, as he cast a look
of ill-concealed contempt on his young companions, who so little
understood the art of drinking the cup of pleasure with decency, and
rolled about on their seats with lolling tongues and leering eyes.

Feodor alone had preserved the power of his mind; his brain alone
was unclouded by the fumes of champagne, and that which had made the
others mad had only served to make him sad and gloomy. The drunkenness
of his comrades had sobered him, and, feeling satiated with all the
so-called joys and delights of life, he asked himself, with a smile of
contempt, whether the stammering, staggering fellows, who sat next to
him, were fit and suitable companions and associates of a man who had
made pleasure a study, and who considered enjoyment as a philosophical
problem, difficult of solution.

"And for what stake shall we play?" he asked again, as with a powerful
grip he woke his neighbor, Lieutenant von Matusch, out of the half
sleep which had crept over him.

"For our share of the booty!" stammered the lieutenant.

Feodor looked at him with surprise. "What booty? Have we, then, become
robbers and plunderers, that you speak of booty?"

His comrades burst into a wild laugh.

"Just listen to the sentimental dreamer, the cosmopolite," cried Major
von Fritsch. "He looks upon it as dishonorable to take booty. I for
my part maintain that there is no greater pleasure, and certainly none
which is more profitable. Fill your glasses, friends, and let us drink
to our hunting. 'Hurrah! hurrah for human game!'"

They struck their glasses together, and emptied them amidst an uproar
of laughter.

"Colonel, y