“Surely, your highness,” shrieked the count, stepping forth from his place of retirement, pale and trembling with passion, “you can not ask me any longer to submit in silence to such gross insults.”

“Gracious sir,” asked Burgsdorf, “may the ass’s hide speak?  May a piece of parchment, merely because hallowed by the Emperor’s signature, venture to leave its place and threaten?”

“Hush, Burgsdorf!  And you, sir, step back into your recess, stay in the place pointed out to you, and wait.”

“Learn to wait!” cried Burgsdorf.  “Oh, gracious sir, that is the very window niche in which I was once forced to stand in order to learn to wait.  I thank you, gracious sir, for in this hour you give me my revenge.  Now it is for my enemy to learn; and I beseech Your Grace to give me leave to open my budget from Berlin.  The parchment must hear it and learn.  Oh, I know how it feels to have to listen in silence to have to learn to wait!”

“Colonel Conrad von Burgsdorf,” said the Elector with majesty, “you are here to bring me tidings from Berlin.  Speak out and be assured that no one will venture to interrupt you.  In the first place, have you executed my orders?”

“Yes, gracious sir, according to the best of my abilities and the means at my disposal.”

“As their superior officer, have you required an oath of allegiance to me from the commandants and garrisons of the forts?”

“I sent your orders everywhere, requiring the commandants to swear their men into service in your name, and to come to Berlin that I might administer the same oath to themselves.”

“And have they done so?  Have my officers and troops sworn to serve me faithfully?”

“A few commandants have done so, but Kracht, Rochow, and Goldacker have refused, declaring that they would rather blow their fortresses up than swear fealty to the Elector.  Hereupon I forthwith had the commandant of Berlin, Colonel von Kracht, arrested, and would have proceeded in like manner against the Commandants von Rochow and von Goldacker, but the traitors got wind of my intentions.  Goldacker left Brandenburg with thirty horse, and, report says, went over to the Imperialists.  Colonel von Rochow, however, in his fortress assumed a warlike attitude, and gave out that he was ready to do battle with the enemy to the death.  Meanwhile Margrave Ernest conferred with him under a flag of truce, and the committee of investigation at Berlin diligently prosecuted their labors, and brought to light heinous offenses committed by the two colonels and Count John Adolphus von Schwarzenberg.”

“Do you know the particulars?  The colonels were accused of cheating and embezzlement, were they not?”

“Yes,” said Burgsdorf with a little embarrassment, “the question regards the payment of the troops enlisted, for which the colonels received money, and—­and—­”

“And yet the men were not enlisted,” said the Elector, with an imperceptible smile.  “Had they done nothing more than this, I would have pardoned them; if they had shown themselves in other respects true and faithful, and repented of their folly.”