“Unhappy Prince, you would not live, then?” asked she, in distress.  “Hear me, Frederick William.  If you delay, you are lost beyond all hope of cure.  Nobody knows the remedy for your sufferings but myself, and nobody can save you if I do not!  Oh, think not that I would merit your thanks and rewards!  I have come hither at the peril of my own life, and each minute increases my own danger as well as yours.  The soldiers have fled before my apparition.  If a braver one should come to look closer at the White Lady, I am lost, and you with me, for then I could not administer to you the antidote.”

“Tell me who you are, that I may see whether I may trust you.”

“Who am I?” asked she.  “I am a poor, mortal woman, who possesses nothing upon earth but a heart, which loves nothing but a poor, much-to-be-pitied man, whom not his own will but destiny has made a criminal.  His child and I were threatened with death, and to save us he committed a crime.  Electoral Prince, Count Schwarzenberg has poisoned you by means of Gabriel Nietzel.  I come to save you.  Not for your own sake.  What are you to me?—­why should I disturb myself about you?  I love Gabriel Nietzel, and I would not have his soul burdened by a crime that would break his heart.  My Gabriel has a tender heart; he was not made to be a criminal.  Therefore would I absolve him from that curse, for I love Gabriel, and would not have him be a murderer.  Do you believe me now?  Will you try my palliative now?”

The Electoral Prince lay there silent and motionless, and his large, wide-open eyes gazed searchingly and inquiringly up at the white figure, as if they would penetrate the veil and read her features.

Rebecca had a consciousness of this, and let the white veil fall from her head.  “Look in my face,” she said, “and read from that whether I speak the truth.”

“Gabriel Nietzel, too, came to warn me,” murmured the Prince, quivering with pain, “and afterward it was he who poisoned me.  From him come these fearful tortures which are burning now like the flames of hell.”

“Gracious sir, oh, my dear sir!” cried Dietrich now, coming up to the bed and kneeling beside it, “I beseech you, take nothing from her.  I have heard all, and I tell you it is Schwarzenberg who sends this Jewess to you.  Trust her not, my beloved Prince, take none of her hellish mixtures!”

“Trust me,” said Rebecca quietly.  “If life is dear to you, if you hope in the future, if you would take vengeance upon the man who is your real murderer, whose mere tool my poor husband was, then accept the remedy which I bring you!”

“Yes,” cried the Electoral Prince, with countenance lighting up, “yes, I will take it!  Give me your remedy.  Hush, Dietrich, hush!  I will take it!”

“Praised be Jehovah! he will take it!” said she joyfully, drawing forth from her bosom a little flask.  “Before I give you the medicine, I have something to say to you, Frederick William.  As soon as you have taken it, you will fall into a deep sleep, almost resembling death.  If you are disturbed in this, the efficacy of my cordial will be destroyed.”