The Electoral 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 Schwarzenberg has poisoned you.  Are you not consumed by inward fires?  Is not your head heavy and giddy?”

“I see plainly that you know what I suffer—­you know the poison which was given me.”

“I know the poison, but I also know its cure.  I know its antidote, and have brought it to you.  I would save you.”

“You would save me?” asked the Electoral Prince.  “Am I not dying fast enough for you?  Have I not yet swallowed enough of the deadly fluid that you would give me more as a remedy?  The invention is somewhat flimsy!  I shall not drink!”