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Trembling, the band of servants looked on with folded hands; with a savage smile upon his face, stood Count Munnich at his window above. Weaker and weaker grew the cries of the unhappy sufferers they no longer prayed for mercy. The knout continued to flay their bodies, but their blood no longer flowed they were dead!
Munnich devised this quadrilateral mode; and found it good against the Turks, and their deluges of raging horse and foot: Fermor could perhaps do better; but there is such a press of hurry. Fermor's western flank, or biggest breadth of quadrilateral, leans on that Zabern Hollow, with its fine quagmires; his eastern, narrowest part, droops down on certain mud-pools and conveniences towards Zicher.
'I have been this good while within it, answers Keith, pointing to his dead men. Aide-de-Camp canters up a second time: 'Advance within half musket-shot, General Keith, and quit any covert you have! Keith does so; sends, with his respects to Feldmarschall Munnich, his remonstrance against such a waste of human life.
Quick and decisive as were the hearings, now followed the sentences. Ostermann was condemned to be broken on the wheel, Munnich to be quartered, and the two ministers, Lowenwald and Golopkin, to the axe! But Elizabeth had promised her people that no one should be punished with death; she must abide by that promise, and she did.
"As friends for life and death!" said Munnich, with a smile. But no sooner had the door closed behind him than the smile vanished from his features, and was replaced by an expression of furious rage.
He found the duke alone; absorbed in thought, he was standing at the window looking down into streets which were henceforth to be subjected to his sway. "Your highness is surveying your realm," said Munnich, with a smile. "Wait but a little, and you will soon see all the great nobility flocking here to pay you homage.
Munnich stared at her with widely opened eyes, trembling lips, and pallid cheeks. His head swam, and he thought he could not have rightly heard. "I hope this is only a misunderstanding!" he stammered. "I must have heard wrong; it cannot be your intention to refuse me." "Would to God it were yet in my power to gratify you!" sighed the regent. "But I cannot give what is no longer mine!
Munnich remained with the regent until eleven o'clock in the evening, and then they separated with the greatest kindness and the heartiest assurances of mutual friendship and devotion. "Ah, that was a hard trial!" said Munnich, breathing easier and deeper, as he left the palace of the duke behind him. "I was already convinced that all was lost, but this Biron is unsuspecting as a child!
"You will liberate yourself from one tyrant, your highness, to become the prey of another. The eyes of the dying see clear, and I tell you, duchess, you were already on the point of giving away the power you have attained. Know you what Munnich's demand will be?" "Well?" "He will demand what Biron refused him, and for which refusal Munnich became his enemy.
For if it was forbidden to admit any one whatever, during the night, to the palace occupied by the young czar, and if also the regent had given the guards strict orders to shoot any one who might attempt, in spite of these commands, to penetrate into the forbidden precincts, this day made an exception for Munnich, as a portion of one of his own regiments was to-day on duty at the imperial palace.
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