“Ah!” murmured the king, as he turned from Rothenberg, “I fear I have not the strength to support this coming trial.”  After a pause, he continued:  “Now, my friend, tell me, are my mother and sisters well?”

“Sire, the entire royal family are well.”

“Your intelligence, then, relates to my friends.  Two of them are ill—­yes, two.  How is Jordan?  You do not answer—­you weep.  How is Jordan?”

“Sire, Jordan is dead.”

“Dead!” cried the king, as he sank powerless upon his chair, and covered his face with his hands.  “Dead! my best, my dearest friend is dead?”

“His death was as bright and peaceful as his life,” said Rothenberg.  “His last word was a farewell to your majesty, his last act was to write to his king.  Here is the letter, sire.”

The king silently received the letter from Rothenberg.  Two great tears ran slowly down his checks, and, falling on the letter, obliterated some words of the address.  “Jordan’s hand wrote these words for the last time; this idle title ’his majesty’—­and my tears have washed it away.  Jordan!  Jordan I am no longer a king, but a poor, weak man who mourns for his lost friend.”

He pressed the paper passionately to his lips; then placed it in his bosom, and turned once more to Rothenberg.

“Tell me the rest, my friend; I am resigned to all things now.”

“Did you not say, sire, that you had left two friends ill in Berlin?”

“Jordan and Kaiserling.  You do not mean that Kaiserling also—­oh, no, no! that is impossible!  Jordan is dead, and I knew that he must die; but Kaiserling will recover—­I feel, I know it.”

“Your majesty,” said Rothenberg, “if I were a pious priest, I would say Kaiserling has recovered, for his soul has returned to God.”

“Kaiserling dead also!  Rothenberg, how could you find the courage to tell me this?  Two friends lost in a moment of time.”  The king said nothing more.  His head sank upon his breast, and he wept bitterly.  After a time he raised his head, and said, as if to himself:  “My two friends!  They were my family—­now I am orphaned.  Sorrow will make a desert of my heart, and men will call me cold and heartless.  They will not know that my heart is a graveyard, wherein my friends lie buried.”

The tears ran slowly down his cheeks as he uttered this death-wail.  So deep was the grief depicted on the countenance of the king, that Rothenberg could no longer restrain himself.  He rushed to the king, and, sinking on his knees beside him, seized his hands and covered them with tears and kisses.

“Oh, my king, my hero! cease to mourn, if you do not wish to see me die of grief.”

The king smiled mournfully, as he replied:  “If one could die of grief, I would not have survived this hour.”

“What would the world think could they see this great conqueror forgetting his triumphs and indulging such grief?”

“Ah, my friend, you desire to console me with the remembrance of this victory!  I rejoice that I have preserved my land from a cruel misfortune, and that my troops are crowned with glory.  But my personal vanity finds no food in this victory.  The welfare and the happiness of my people alone lie on my heart—­I think not of my own fleeting fame.”