Rhenskioeld, 'that
you have complied with my request so promptly. It was _my_ duty to
visit you, but my hours are all numbered. I shall be compelled to labor
through the whole night, and in the morning I shall be on my way
towards Frederickshall.'

'You come from Aland?' eagerly asked Rhenskioeld: 'what news from
thence?'

'Thank God!' cried Goertz with clasped hands: 'I bring you peace with
Russia.'

'Peace!' exclaimed Rhenskioeld, springing from his seat. 'Peace between
the shrewd czar, who never fails to follow up an advantage, and our
Charles, whom misfortune only renders the more inflexibly? It is
impossible! Even could you really obtain tolerable conditions yet would
the king never accept them.'

'The splendid conditions which I bring will certainly be ratified by
him,' answered Goertz. 'Peter retains nothing of his conquests except
Livonia, a part of Ingermanland and Caralia. He yields back all
besides.'

'Peter give any thing back!' screamed Rhenskioeld, with astonishment.

'Russia,' proceeded Goertz, 'binds herself with us, to set upon the
throne of Poland the same Stanislaus whom she formerly chased from it,
and furnishes 80,000 men to enthrone the same august personage against
whom she has been fighting the last ten years.'

'You must be relating to me, a fable from the thousand and one nights!'
said Rhenskioeld incredulously.

'Russia,' proceeded Goertz, 'is to furnish shipping for the conveyance
of 10,000 Swedes to England to sustain the Pretender. In connection
with Sweden, she seizes upon Hanover. We take Bremen and Verden,
re-establish the duke of Holstein, force Prussia to give up her booty,
and compel the emperor to observe the treaty of Altranstadt.'

'And now are you awake?' asked the fieldmarshal with a satirical smile:
'for thus do such narrations usually terminate, when the narrator has
only been dreaming.'

Goertz stopped, and gazed at his auditor. He however conquered his
impetuosity, went to his writing desk, took from it a manuscript, and
with the exclamation, 'read,' gave it to the fieldmarshal.

Rhenskioeld read--and as he read his eyes opened wider and wider, while
in the same ratio his brow became knit with anger, and he appeared to
struggle with some highly unpleasant feeling. Finally, he silently gave
back the paper, rose up, and took his hat and sword.

'You appear to be convinced, now, sir fieldmarshal,' said Goertz: 'but
the conviction does not seem to please you, notw