“Save them from what?  Rescue them from what?” asked the Prince, in cold and measured phrase.  “Why do you call my fatherland unhappy, and why do you say that the Brandenburgers are to be pitied?  Is not my fatherland, for doubtless you do not mean Germany, but my special fatherland, in which I have been born and reared, is not the Mark Brandenburg now quite happy and peaceful, as it has been for some years past, since it is again under the Emperor’s protection and favor, in pleasant neutrality between the two inimical parties?  And as to my good Brandenburgers, I can not imagine how you can call them so much to be pitied when Count Adam von Schwarzenberg is still Stadtholder in the Mark—­Count Adam von Schwarzenberg, who certainly must have the good of Brandenburg at heart, since he knows how much my father loves him and trusts to him.  He will always show himself worthy of confidence, I doubt not, and I have the highest respect for my father’s great and wise minister.”

“Ah! your highness mistrusts me,” cried Marwitz with an expression of pain.  “Your highness takes me for one of Schwarzenberg’s adherents.”

“No, I take you for what you are, the messenger and emissary of my father, the Elector of Brandenburg.”

“Your highness would thereby say that this messenger and emissary has consequently received his orders from Count Schwarzenberg, because the count is really lord of the Mark and the Elector’s right hand.  I read in your countenance that you do so, and that therefore you mistrust me.  But I swear to you, Prince, you may believe in my honest, upright intentions—­you may believe that what I say is in solemn earnest.”

“I believe it, certainly I believe it,” said the Prince.  “You have undertaken the commissions of the Elector and his Minister Schwarzenberg; naturally you will be in earnest in executing them.”

“Prince, I have undertaken the commissions, the behests of the Elector; but from himself and not from his minister did I obtain them.  I have sworn to execute them, and do you know why?”

“Why?  Simply because you are your master’s obedient servant.”

“No, Prince, because I am a faithful servant of my country, and because I have a heart to feel for her affliction and distress.  The Elector has commanded me to travel to The Hague, and to convey his strict injunction to the Electoral Prince that he shall immediately set out and return home to Berlin.  The Elector bids me say to your highness that he has committed to me five thousand dollars to defray the expenses of your journey back and for the liquidation of the most pressing debts.  Should this sum not suffice, then am I empowered, in the name of his Electoral Highness, to give security for the payment of the other debts, and your highness is so to arrange your journey that your suite may follow in the least expensive way possible.  I was to urge on you seriously and decidedly the propriety of departure, and your father