But while hundreds sought refuge and safety there, Gotzkowsky himself was like a stranger in his own house.  Day and night was he seen on the streets; where-ever danger and alarm prevailed, he appeared like a rescuing angel; he brought help when all else despaired, and the power of his eloquence and his pleading words silenced even the rough insolence of the enemy’s soldiers.  A hundred times did he expose his own life to save some unfortunate.  In the New Frederick Street he rushed through the flames into a burning house to save a child which had been forgotten.

Elsewhere he fought singly against twenty Austrian soldiers, who were about to carry off two young girls in spite of their heart-rending shrieks and entreaties.  The rescued maidens sank at his feet, and bathed his hand with their tears.

Gotzkowsky raised them to his heart, and said, with an indescribable expression:  “Should I not have compassion on you?  Am not I a father?  Thank my daughter, for it was she who saved you.”

But now, at last, exhausted Nature demanded her rights.  After two days and nights without rest, Gotzkowsky tottered toward his own house.  As he crossed the threshold he asked himself with an anxious heart—­“Will Elise come to meet me?  Has she cared for me?” And trembling with care and love, he went in.

Elise did not come to meet him.  No one bade him welcome but his servant Peter.  Gently at last, indeed almost timidly, he ventured to inquire after his daughter.

“She is in the large hall, busy nursing the wounded who have been carried there.”

Gotzkowsky’s countenance expressed great delight and relief at this report.  Elise had not, then, buried herself in the solitude of her room in idle complaint, but had sought, like himself, comfort for her suffering in helping and sympathizing with others.  In this moment he appreciated the infinity of his love.  He yearned to take her to his heart, and pour out to her all his unappreciated, doubted love, and convince her that she, his daughter, the only child of his wife, was the true end and object of his life.  But unhappy, oppressed Berlin left him no time to attend to the soft and gentle dictates of his father’s heart.  He had scarcely got into his house, when two messengers arrived from the town Council, bringing him six thousand dollars in cash, with the urgent request that he would take charge of this sum, which would be safe only with him.  The town messengers had scarcely left him, when there arrived the rich manufacturers, Wegeli and Wuerst, with a wagon-load of gold and silver bars which Gotzkowsky had promised to keep in his fire-proof cellars.

His house had become the treasury of the whole of Berlin; and if it had been destroyed, with all these gold and silver ingots, these diamonds and silver ware, money and papers, all the Exchanges of Europe would have felt the disastrous consequences.

At last, all these treasures were stowed away, and Gotzkowsky addressed himself to rest, when the door of his room was suddenly opened, and General von Bachmann entered hastily.