Berlin and Sans-Souci Part 42

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."

"The fame of my king is not fleeting. It will live in future years,"

cried the general.

The king shrugged his shoulders almost contemptuously. "Only death stamps fame upon kings' lives. For the present, I am content to fulfil my duties to the best of my ability. To be a true king, a monarch must be willing to resign all personal happiness. As for me, Rothenberg, on this day, when I, as a king, am peculiarly fortunate, my heart is wrung by the loss of two dear friends. The man must pay for the happiness of the king. But," said the king, after a pause, "this is the dealing of the Almighty; I must submit silently. Would that my heart were silent! I will tell you something, my friend. I fear that I was unjust to Machiavelli. He was right--only a man with a heart of iron can be a king, for he alone could think entirely of his people."

"How suffering and full of grief must my king be to speak thus! You have lost two dear friends, sire. I also mourn their loss, but am suffering from a still deeper grief. I have lost the love of my king. I have lost faith in the friendship of my Frederick," said Rothenberg, sighing deeply.

"My Rothenberg," said the king, with his deep, tender voice, "look at me, and tell me what men call you, when they speak of you and me?"

"I hope they call me your majesty's most faithful servant."

"No, they call you my favorite, and what they say is true. Vox populi vox Dei. Come to my heart, my favorite."

"Ah! my king, my prince, my friend," cried Rothenberg, enthusiastically, as he threw himself into the arms of the king.

They stood long thus, heart pressed to heart; and who that had seen them, the king and the hero, the conquerors of the day, would have imagined that their tears were not the tears of happiness and triumph, but of suffering and love?

"And now," said Frederick, after a pause, "let me again be king. I must return to my duties."

He seated himself at the table, and Rothenberg, after taking from the dispatch-bag a number of doc.u.ments bearing the state seal, handed the king a daintily perfumed, rose-colored note. The king would not receive it, although a light flush mounted to his brow and his eyes beamed more brightly.

"Lay that on one side," he said, "I cannot read it; the notes of the Miserere are still sounding in my heart, and this operatic air would but create a discord. We will proceed to read the dispatches."

CHAPTER VIII.

A LETTER PREGNANT WITH FATE.

The king was not the only person, in the encampment at Sohr, to whom the courier brought letters from Berlin; the colonel of every regiment had received a securely-locked post-bag containing the letters for the officers and soldiers of his regiment, which it was his duty to deliver. To avoid errors in the distribution, every post-bag was accompanied by a list, sent from the war department, on which each person to whom a letter was addressed must write a receipt.

Colonel von Jaschinsky was therefore compelled to deliver to Lieutenant von Trenck both the letters which were addressed to him.

The colonel looked at one of these letters with a most malicious expression; he was not at all curious concerning its contents, for he was well acquainted with them, and knew that as soon as Trenck received it, it would become a sword, whose deadly point would be directed to the breast of the young man.

He knew the letter, for he had seen it before, but he had not delivered it; he had fraudulently withheld it from Trenck, in order to send it to Berlin, to his friend Pollnitz, and to ask him if he did not think it well suited to accomplish their purpose of making Lieutenant von Trenck harmless, by bringing about his utter destruction. Pollnitz had not answered up to this time, but to-day Colonel von Jaschinsky had received a letter from him, in which he said: "It is now time to allow the letter of the pandour to work. I carried the letter to the post, and I imagine that I played the part of a Job's messenger to his impertinent young officer, who allows himself to believe that his colonel owes him two hundred ducats. If you have ever really been his debtor, he will certainly be yours from to-day, for to you he will owe free quarters in one of the Prussian forts, and I hope for no short time. When you inform the king of this letter from the pandour, you can also say that Lieutenant von Trenck received a second letter from Berlin, and that you believe it to be from a lady. Perhaps the king will demand this letter, which I am positive Trenck will receive, for I mailed it myself, and it is equally certain that he will not destroy it, for lovers do not destroy the letters of the beloved."

No, lovers never destroy the letters of the beloved. What would have induced Frederick von Trenck to destroy this paper, on which HER HAND had rested, her eyes had looked upon, her breath touched, and on which her love, her vows, her longing, and her faith, were depicted? No, he would not have exchanged it for all the treasures of the world--this holy, this precious paper, which said to him that the Princess Amelia had not forgotten him, that she was determined to wait with patience, and love, and faith, until her hero returned, covered with glory, with a laurel-wreath on his brow, which would be brighter and more beautiful than the crown of a king.

As Trenck read these lines he wept with shame and humiliation. Two battles had been already won, and his name had remained dark and unknown; two battles, and none of those heroic deeds which his beloved expected from him with such certainty, had come in his path.

He had performed his duty as a brave soldier, but he had not accomplished such an heroic act as that of Krauel, in the past year, which had raised the common soldier to the t.i.tle of Baron Krauel von Ziskaberg, and had given to the unknown peasant a name whose fame would extend over centuries. He had not astonished the whole world with a daring, unheard-of undertaking, such as that of Ziethen, who had pa.s.sed with his hussars, unknown, through the Austrian camp. He had been nothing but a brave soldier--he had done nothing more than many thousands. He felt the strength and the courage to tear the very stars from heaven, that he might bind them as a diadem upon the brow of his beloved; to battle with the t.i.tans, and plunge them into the abyss; to bear upon his shoulders the whole world, as Atlas did; he felt in himself the power, the daring, the will, and the ability of a hero. But the opportunity failed him.

The deeds which he longed to accomplish did not lie in his path. And thus, in spite of two victorious battles in which he had fought; in spite of the evident good-will of the king, he had remained what he was, the unknown, undistinguished Lieutenant von Trenck. With a trembling heart he demanded of himself that the Princess Amelia would continue to love him if he returned to her as he had departed; if her proud, pure heart could stand that severest of all tests, the discovery that she had bestowed her love upon an ordinary, undistinguished man.

"No, no!" he cried, "I have not the courage to return thus to her.

If I cannot distinguish myself, I can die. In the next battle I will conquer fame or death. And if I fall, she will weep for me. That would be a far happier fate than living to be forgotten or despised by her."

He pressed Amelia's letter to his lips, then placed it in his bosom, and opened the second letter. Whilst he read, an expression of astonishment appeared on his features, and a smile, half gay, half scornful, played upon his full, fresh lips. Soon, however, his features grew earnest, and a dark shadow clouded his youthful brow.

"If I had enemies they could destroy me with this letter," he said, in a low voice. "It could, wild and silly as it is, be made to represent me as a traitor. Perhaps it is a pitfall which has been prepared for me. Is it possible that the authorities should have allowed this letter, coming evidently from inimical Austria, to pa.s.s unread through their hands? I will go immediately to my colonel, and show him this letter," said Trenck. "He can then inform the king of it if he think it necessary. Concealment might be more dangerous for me than an open acknowledgment."

And placing this second letter also in his bosom, Trenck proceeded to the tent of Colonel von Jaschinsky, who welcomed him with unusual warmth.

"Colonel," said Trenck, "do you remember the singular letter which I received six months since from my cousin, Baron von Trenck, colonel of the pandours?"

"Ah, you mean that letter in which he invites you to come to Austria, and promised, should you do so, to make you his sole heir?"

"Yes, that is the letter I mean. I informed you of it at the time and asked your advice."

"What advice did I give you?"

"That I should reply kindly and gratefully to my cousin; that I should not appear indifferent or ungrateful for a proposal by which I might become a millionnaire. You advised me to decline going to Austria, but only to decline so long as there was war between Prussia and Austria."

"Well, I think the advice was good, and that you may still follow it."

"You advised me also to write to my cousin to send me some of those beautiful Hungarian horses, and promised to forward my letter through Baron von Bossart, the Saxon amba.s.sador; but on the condition that when I received the Hungarian horses, I should present one of them to you."

"That was only a jest--a jest which binds you to nothing, and of which you have no proofs."

"I!" asked Trenck, astonished; "what proof do I need that I promised you a Hungarian horse? What do I want with proofs?"

Count Jaschinsky looked embarra.s.sed before the open, trusting expression of the young officer. His singular remark would have betrayed him to a more suspicious, a more worldly-wise man, who would have perceived from it the possibility of some danger, from which Jaschinsky was seeking to extricate himself.

"I did not mean," said the count, laughing, "that you needed a proof; I only wished to say that I had no proof that you had promised me a Hungarian horse, and that you need not feel obliged to give me one."

"Yes, colonel, your request and my promise occurred before witnesses. Lieutenant von Stadnitz and Ensign von Wagnitz were present; and if that had not been the case, I should consider my word binding. But at present I have no Hungarian horses, only an answer from my singular cousin, the contents of which I wish to impart to you."

"Ah, the colonel of the pandours has answered you?" asked Jaschinsky, with well-dissembled astonishment.

"Yes, he has answered me, and has written me the most singular letter that one can imagine. Only listen to it."

And Frederick von Trenck hastily pulled out the letter which he had put in his bosom. Entirely occupied with this subject, and thinking of nothing else, he opened the letter and read:

"From yours, dated Berlin, February 12th, I ascertain that you desire some Hungarian horses on which to meet my hussars and pandours. I learned with much pleasure, in the last campaign, that the Prussian Trenck was a brave soldier; as a proof of my consideration, I returned to you at that time the horses which my men had captured from you. If you desire to ride Hungarian horses, you must take mine from me on the field, or come to your cousin, who will receive you with open arms as his son and friend, and accord you every wish of your heart."

Had Trenck looked less attentively at his letter, while reading, he would have perceived that Jaschinsky was paying but slight attention (he was looking attentively on the floor); he quietly approached Trenck, and placed his foot upon something which he evidently wished to conceal. He then stood still, and as Trenck finished reading he broke into a loud laugh, in which the young officer joined him.

"Your cousin is a droll man," said the count, "and under the conditions which he offers you, I will still accept your Hungarian horse. Perhaps you will soon find an opportunity to give it to me, for I believe we are about to attack Hungary, and you can yourself procure the horses. But now, my young friend, excuse me; I must go to the king to give my report. You know he will endure no neglect of duty. After the war council I will see you again."