“Why, you yourself gave her to me!”

“Ah!  I owed you a debt I had to pay.  ’Tis paid now.  I thought you gone, and the marriage knocked on the head; but now, you’ve come back, and won’t go again!”

“But, Daniel”—­

“Don’t Daniel me, I say, and don’t speak loud; at least, she sha’n’t see you taken off.  Lie quiet for her sake, and show your love for her that way.”

“And so you’ll give me up, old friend, whose life I saved?”

“Saved!—­you saved it once, and I saved yours.  You took away my hope when you robbed me of my wife;—­now I give you a like return.”

“And you yourself, Daniel, who harbored me yesterday”—­

“That’s nothing to you.—­Lie still till some one passes.”

For the strong sailor had tipped the officer on to the mattress.  There he lay,—­not from want of courage, but because he did not know what to do.

The sailor felt for his pipe, but he remembered that all the tobacco was smoked up; so he set the pipe down again and bit his nails.

He had not waited a quarter of an hour when a voice said,—­“This way, Herr Burgomaster!—­this way!”

The sailor and his prisoner both started to their feet; and the burgomaster, coming to the open window, lost the last faint hopes he had had that this said French officer might not, after all, be the French officer at whose escape he, the respected burgomaster and butcher, had assisted.

“Mr. Burgomaster, here is a French prisoner,—­and I hand him to you as the fit personage to place him in the hands of the commander.”

Thus spoke Daniel, and, as he spoke, Bertha appeared at the door of her room, and with her Doome, who hearing this little speech, all her liking for the sailor vanished on the instant.  She was ready to utterly exterminate him, and more than ready to cry, which she did, straightway.

As this is only a little comedy, and by no means tragical, we pass over the next scene, and simply state, that Bertha, before all those neighbors, forgot everybody but her husband,—­if he may be called so, —­and the church had said so; that Daniel felt great remorse at what he had done; that he told Doome again that he wished the shark had finished him; that Doome didn’t or wouldn’t hear, for her idol was broken,—­and so was Doome’s heart, nearly.

The authorities took away the prisoner, and left Bertha and Doome wretched and alone.  As for Daniel, he went out wandering by himself, —­for he rather felt ashamed to look upon anybody.

At this time, a little boat with a white flag at its prow put off from the French fleet, and bravely approached the bristling fort of Ruegen.  Nearer and nearer it comes,—­nearer and nearer; and in half an hour there is great cheering over the island of Ruegen, for peace between Prussia and France is declared.

’Tis true, the peace did not last very long; but it lasted long enough to save the French officer.  He was set at liberty at once, and an hour afterwards Daniel could look people in the face again, —­all except Doome, who would not cease to be incensed.