“And what is the goal of his journey?”

“As I told you, some desolate island in the ocean, where no ships touch.  There the emperor will be put ashore and left to support life like a second Robinson Crusoe, or in his despair seek death.”

“Well, the plan really is not impracticable, and has been devised with equal boldness and calculation.  Only I should like to know why so much ado is made, instead of adopting the shorter process, that is, murdering the emperor.”

“For two reasons!  The conspirators consider their task too sacred to profane it by assassination.  They wish to rid Europe of the unhallowed yoke which weighs upon it in the person of the Emperor Napoleon.  They are convinced that they are summoned to the work; that they shall thereby render the world and mankind a service full of blessing; but they will not anticipate fate; they will leave it to God to end a life which they merely desire to render harmless to God and men.  This is the first motive for not killing the emperor, the second is that they believe a speedy death would be no fit punishment for the crime which Napoleon has perpetrated on humanity, while a perpetual, hopeless captivity, embittered by the omnipresent, ever alert consciousness of ruined greatness, of fame buried in dust and silence, would be a lasting penance more terrible to an ambitious land-robber than death could ever be.”

“They are right, by the eternal God, they are right!” cried Schulmeister; “I believe that the emperor would prefer a speedy death a hundred times to such slow torture; and to you, Leonore, to you and to me will now fall the vast, the priceless happiness of preserving the emperor from such martyrdom.  I say the priceless happiness, but I shall take good care that the emperor pays me for it as dearly as possible, and—­so far as it can be done—­balances the immense weight of our service by its compensation.  By heaven, half a million francs really seems a trivial reward, and I don’t know whether we can be satisfied with it.”

“I shall be satisfied,” cried Leonore, with an enthusiastic glance, “only when you fulfill the vow which you made; when, after I have made you rich, you make me free and permit me to go with the man whom I love wherever I desire, taking care that you do not betray by a word, a hint, who I am, and what I was.”

“I will fulfill my oath to you,” said Schulmeister earnestly, “for you have performed yours.  You have discovered a conspiracy, and through this discovery saved the emperor from a terrible misfortune, and given me the right to demand a high price.  You will make me rich; you will drive the demon of poverty from my head; I will repay you—­I will guard yours from the demons of disgrace and shame; you shall have no cause to blush in the presence of the man whom you love.  On the day that I bring from the emperor half a million as my property and yours, your past and mine will both be effaced, and we will enter upon a new life, in a new world!