ctoral Prince Frederick William lay upon his bed with open eyes.
For the past half hour the pains which raged within had somewhat slackened
in intensity, and allowed him more repose. This season of repose had
overcome old Dietrich, and, like the disciples on Mount Olivet, he had
fallen "asleep for sorrow." The Prince was awake and found himself in that
overwrought condition in which the high-strung, quivering nerves lend
wonderful clearness and acuteness to the spirit, and in which the soul
with wide-seeing vision takes in the whole past, the whole future. He saw
his past rise up before him, with all its struggles, its privations, its
inexpressible joys and their painful renunciation. And then, across all
these sufferings, and the pain of the present, he looked into the future,
whose shining ideal stood before him in vivid clearness, beckoning and
calling to him. He saw fame, he saw honor; he heard the din of battle, he
saw a wild chaos, and from this chaos emerged a something, a tangible
shape; it grew large, it assumed form and substance, it was a country--his
country--that he himself had created, drawn forth from chaos. And now he
saw a happy, contented people, saw glad multitudes throng about him and
shout: "Long live our Electoral Prince, Frederick William! Long live our
deliverer, our father!" That ideal, which had lain so long in the secret
depths of his soul, in fact ever since he had known thought; that ideal to
which he had already dedicated himself, when he had stood as a boy by the
corpse of his great-uncle Gustavus Adolphus; that ideal was now truth and
reality before his inward vision. He was a Prince wreathed in glory; he
was beloved by his strong and happy subjects!

"I can not die," he exclaimed, in a loud, strong voice; "I need not die!"

"No, you need not die," said a sonorous voice; and a white form hovered
near, and two great, black eyes glowed upon him. Frederick William tried
to rise, but could not, for his limbs were paralyzed, and he felt as if
chained to his couch by iron fetters.

"Who are you?" he asked softly. "What do you want here? They say that he
to whom you appear is doomed to death; and yet you come to tell me that I
need not die?"

"We are all doomed to die," replied the white figure; "but the hour of
your death has not come yet. I am not come merely to tell you so, but to
save you."

"To save me? You know, then, that I am in danger?"

"Yes! In danger of your life! Count Schwarze