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It is strange, Leuchtmar, that you have returned to-day, the very day which brings home my Polish ambassador with the tidings that the King of Poland is ready solemnly to invest me with the dukedom of Prussia, thanks to our money and our fair speeches. This very day I also expect decisive news from Colonel von Burgsdorf at Berlin. On the self-same day I sent you forth.

"Alas! most noble sir," sighed Burgsdorf, "would that I did not know, for it is a most sorrowful knowledge to an old soldier and in a most distressing condition is the Brandenburg military department." "Yes, indeed!" exclaimed the Elector.

"Well then," said the Elector, "I will gratify you by forgetting that splendid regiment, and by no longer reminding you of the things that were. But this I tell you, Burgsdorf, under my administration everything must correspond, and what is noted down on paper must really exist. And now we shall see if you are acquainted with our military affairs."

I had begun to despair of seeing you to-day. What detained you?" "I could not come sooner," Hartmut explained, still breathless, after his long run. "I come from my father." Zalika drew back. "From your father? And he knows ?" "All!" "So he is at Burgsdorf? Since when? who told him?"

Baron von Wallmoden and his wife had paid a flying visit to Burgsdorf on their way south from the Stahlberg factories, and Willibald was put in their care and was to spend a few days in the South-German Capital. During those few days in which he would remain in the ambassador's house, he was perfectly safe, his mother assured herself.

"And I, sir," called out Burgsdorf, as he rushed forth from the bay window and threw himself on his knees before the Elector, "first of all, I have something to say to you.

It was the only time he used the word "son;" he had called him Rojanow in telling the story, and he did it with a purpose now. For the first time there was a movement from the window, but it was a movement of anger. "I have no son, bear that in mind, Wallmoden. He died that last night at Burgsdorf, and the dead return no more."

"Colonel von Burgsdorf!" he cried, then turned, strode through the cabinet and seated himself in the armchair before his father's writing table. In the door of the entrance hall now appeared Colonel von Burgsdorf, his broad, red face wearing an embarrassed expression.

"In God's name I swear that I will have no other Sovereign, and serve under no other Prince, than yourself alone, the Elector of Brandenburg!" cried Burgsdorf, laying both his hands in that of the Elector and pressing it fervently to his lips.

The count's countenance cleared up and assumed a triumphant expression when the four officers had left his cabinet, and he was now once more alone. "I shall now be rid of that quarrelsome and dangerous man, Burgsdorf," he said complacently, as he sank apparently exhausted into an easy chair. "I have rendered him harmless and shoved him aside without his being really conscious of it.