slip was of any value to him, it would
be absolutely necessary to conceal the fact from Kohlhaas, since, if he
got a hint of it through any heedless expression, all the wealth of the
elector would be insufficient to get it out of the hands of a fellow so
insatiable in his vengeance. To calm him, he added that some other
means must be devised, and that perhaps it would be possible to gain
the slip to which he attached so much importance, by cunning and
through the medium of a third indifferent party, as the criminal did
not set any value on it.

The elector, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, asked whether
it would not be possible with this intent to send to Dahme, and to
delay the further transport of the horse-dealer until the slip, in some
way or other, was secured.

The chamberlain, who could not trust his senses, replied that in all
probability the horse-dealer had unfortunately left Dahme already, and
was already over the boundary and on Brandenburg soil, where every
endeavour to impede his progress, or to turn him back, must lead to the
most unpleasant and lengthened difficulties--such difficulties, indeed,
as it might be impossible to get over.

When the elector, with a gesture of utter despair, threw himself back
on his cushion in silence, the chamberlain asked him what it was that
the slip contained, and by what strange and inexplicable chance he knew
that the contents concerned him.

Casting equivocal glances at the chamberlain, whose willingness to
oblige him he doubted, the elector made no answer, but lay quite stiff,
yet with heart uneasily beating, while his eyes were fixed on the
corner of the handkerchief, which, immersed in thought, he held in his
hands. All at once he ordered him to call into the chamber the
hunting-page (_Jagd-junker_) Von Stein, an active and sharp-witted
young gentleman, whom he had often employed on secret affairs, on the
pretext that he had business to settle with him of quite a different
nature.

After he had set forth the whole affair to this page, and had informed
him of the importance of the slip, now in the possession of Kohlhaas,
he asked him whether he was willing to earn an eternal claim to his
friendship by getting this slip before Kohlhaas reached Berlin.

The page as soon as he, in some degree, understood the affair, strange
as it was, declared that all his powers were at the service of the
elector, whereupon the latter commissioned him to ride after Ko