Part 42 (1/2)

So deep was the grief depicted on the countenance of the king, that Rothenberg could no longer restrain himself. He rushed to the king, and, sinking on his knees beside him, seized his hands and covered them with tears and kisses.

”Oh, my king, my hero! cease to mourn, if you do not wish to see me die of grief.”

The king smiled mournfully, as he replied: ”If one could die of grief, I would not have survived this hour.”

”What would the world think could they see this great conqueror forgetting his triumphs and indulging such grief?”

”Ah, my friend, you desire to console me with the remembrance of this victory! I rejoice that I have preserved my land from a cruel misfortune, and that my troops are crowned with glory. But my personal vanity finds no food in this victory. The welfare and the happiness of my people alone lie on my heart--I think not of my own fleeting fame.”

”The fame of my king is not fleeting. It will live in future years,”

cried the general.

The king shrugged his shoulders almost contemptuously. ”Only death stamps fame upon kings' lives. For the present, I am content to fulfil my duties to the best of my ability. To be a true king, a monarch must be willing to resign all personal happiness. As for me, Rothenberg, on this day, when I, as a king, am peculiarly fortunate, my heart is wrung by the loss of two dear friends. The man must pay for the happiness of the king. But,” said the king, after a pause, ”this is the dealing of the Almighty; I must submit silently. Would that my heart were silent! I will tell you something, my friend. I fear that I was unjust to Machiavelli. He was right--only a man with a heart of iron can be a king, for he alone could think entirely of his people.”

”How suffering and full of grief must my king be to speak thus! You have lost two dear friends, sire. I also mourn their loss, but am suffering from a still deeper grief. I have lost the love of my king. I have lost faith in the friends.h.i.+p of my Frederick,” said Rothenberg, sighing deeply.

”My Rothenberg,” said the king, with his deep, tender voice, ”look at me, and tell me what men call you, when they speak of you and me?”

”I hope they call me your majesty's most faithful servant.”

”No, they call you my favorite, and what they say is true. Vox populi vox Dei. Come to my heart, my favorite.”

”Ah! my king, my prince, my friend,” cried Rothenberg, enthusiastically, as he threw himself into the arms of the king.

They stood long thus, heart pressed to heart; and who that had seen them, the king and the hero, the conquerors of the day, would have imagined that their tears were not the tears of happiness and triumph, but of suffering and love?

”And now,” said Frederick, after a pause, ”let me again be king. I must return to my duties.”

He seated himself at the table, and Rothenberg, after taking from the dispatch-bag a number of doc.u.ments bearing the state seal, handed the king a daintily perfumed, rose-colored note. The king would not receive it, although a light flush mounted to his brow and his eyes beamed more brightly.

”Lay that on one side,” he said, ”I cannot read it; the notes of the Miserere are still sounding in my heart, and this operatic air would but create a discord. We will proceed to read the dispatches.”

CHAPTER VIII.

A LETTER PREGNANT WITH FATE.

The king was not the only person, in the encampment at Sohr, to whom the courier brought letters from Berlin; the colonel of every regiment had received a securely-locked post-bag containing the letters for the officers and soldiers of his regiment, which it was his duty to deliver. To avoid errors in the distribution, every post-bag was accompanied by a list, sent from the war department, on which each person to whom a letter was addressed must write a receipt.

Colonel von Jaschinsky was therefore compelled to deliver to Lieutenant von Trenck both the letters which were addressed to him.

The colonel looked at one of these letters with a most malicious expression; he was not at all curious concerning its contents, for he was well acquainted with them, and knew that as soon as Trenck received it, it would become a sword, whose deadly point would be directed to the breast of the young man.

He knew the letter, for he had seen it before, but he had not delivered it; he had fraudulently withheld it from Trenck, in order to send it to Berlin, to his friend Pollnitz, and to ask him if he did not think it well suited to accomplish their purpose of making Lieutenant von Trenck harmless, by bringing about his utter destruction. Pollnitz had not answered up to this time, but to-day Colonel von Jaschinsky had received a letter from him, in which he said: ”It is now time to allow the letter of the pandour to work. I carried the letter to the post, and I imagine that I played the part of a Job's messenger to his impertinent young officer, who allows himself to believe that his colonel owes him two hundred ducats. If you have ever really been his debtor, he will certainly be yours from to-day, for to you he will owe free quarters in one of the Prussian forts, and I hope for no short time. When you inform the king of this letter from the pandour, you can also say that Lieutenant von Trenck received a second letter from Berlin, and that you believe it to be from a lady. Perhaps the king will demand this letter, which I am positive Trenck will receive, for I mailed it myself, and it is equally certain that he will not destroy it, for lovers do not destroy the letters of the beloved.”

No, lovers never destroy the letters of the beloved. What would have induced Frederick von Trenck to destroy this paper, on which HER HAND had rested, her eyes had looked upon, her breath touched, and on which her love, her vows, her longing, and her faith, were depicted? No, he would not have exchanged it for all the treasures of the world--this holy, this precious paper, which said to him that the Princess Amelia had not forgotten him, that she was determined to wait with patience, and love, and faith, until her hero returned, covered with glory, with a laurel-wreath on his brow, which would be brighter and more beautiful than the crown of a king.

As Trenck read these lines he wept with shame and humiliation. Two battles had been already won, and his name had remained dark and unknown; two battles, and none of those heroic deeds which his beloved expected from him with such certainty, had come in his path.

He had performed his duty as a brave soldier, but he had not accomplished such an heroic act as that of Krauel, in the past year, which had raised the common soldier to the t.i.tle of Baron Krauel von Ziskaberg, and had given to the unknown peasant a name whose fame would extend over centuries. He had not astonished the whole world with a daring, unheard-of undertaking, such as that of Ziethen, who had pa.s.sed with his hussars, unknown, through the Austrian camp. He had been nothing but a brave soldier--he had done nothing more than many thousands. He felt the strength and the courage to tear the very stars from heaven, that he might bind them as a diadem upon the brow of his beloved; to battle with the t.i.tans, and plunge them into the abyss; to bear upon his shoulders the whole world, as Atlas did; he felt in himself the power, the daring, the will, and the ability of a hero. But the opportunity failed him.