r. I was curious beyond
expression, as you may easily conceive, to take the slip, but she said:
'By no means, your highness,' adding as she turned round and raised one
of her crutches, 'from that man yonder, who with the plumed hat is
standing behind all the people on the bench in the entrance of the
church, you may get the paper if you choose.' And at once, while I was
standing perfectly speechless with astonishment, and had not rightly
made out what she said, she left me, and packing up the box which stood
behind her and flinging it over her back, mingled with the surrounding
crowd, so that I was unable to see her. It was a great consolation to
me at this moment that the knight, whom the elector had sent to the
castle, now returned and told him laughing, that the roebuck had been
killed and dragged into the kitchen by two hunters before his eyes.

"The elector, merrily putting his arm into mine, with the intention of
leading me from the spot, said: 'Good! the prophecy turns out to be a
mere common-place trick, not worth the time and money which it has cost
us.' But how great was our astonishment, when, at the very time he was
speaking these words, a cry was raised, and all eyes were turned
towards a great butcher's dog which came running from the castle-court,
and which, having seized the roebuck in the kitchen, as good spoil, had
borne it off by the nape of the neck, and now dropped it about three
paces from us, followed by a troop of servants, male and female. Thus
was the woman's prophecy, which she had uttered as a guarantee for all
the rest that she predicted, completely fulfilled, as the roebuck had
indeed met us in the marketplace, although it was dead. The lightning
which falls from heaven on a winter's day, cannot strike with more
annihilating effect than that which this sight produced on me; and my
first attempt, after I had freed myself from the persons about me, was
to find out the man with the plumed hat, whom the woman had designated;
but although my people were employed for three days uninterruptedly, in
seeking information, not one of them was in a condition to give me the
slightest intelligence on the subject. Now, friend Conrad, a few weeks
ago, in the farm at Dahme, I saw the man with my own eyes."

Having finished this narrative, the elector let the chamberlain's hand
fall, and sank back on his couch, wiping off the perspiration. The
chamberlain, who thought every attempt to oppose or corre