[Illustration: THE BUNK-HOUSE]

"Was I in a dream? I know not. I did not believe in God; I did not
believe in heaven or in hell; yet do I see my past life go past me in
pictures--pictures of light in frames of fire: Two boys, first,--Max,
my brother, and I,--playing as children; then my mother, weeping for
great sorrow; then the black walls of the great fortress--my brother
with arms outstretched. Again my blood is frozen, again creeps my
skin, and I hear the volley and see him fall to death. I fear. I
scream loud that I love the King, but in my ear comes a voice like
iron--'Liar!' A little girl then, with hair so golden, comes and wipes
the stain of blood from my brow. I see her plain.

"Then I awake. I am alone; the light is out; blood is on my face. I am
paralyzed with fear, so I cannot stand. When I can walk, I leave, for
I think maybe that only in Germany do I hear the guns. For twenty
years I live in Spain. Still do I hear the guns.

"I go to France, but yet every night at the same hour freezes my blood
and I hear the death volley.

"I come to America, which I have hated, yet never a night is missed.
It is at the same hour. What I hate comes to me. Whatever I fear is
mine. To run away from something is for me to meet it. My estate is
gone; money I have not. I sink like a man in a quicksand, down, down,
down. I come here. Lower I cannot."

"One day in the Bend, where das Gesindel live, I see the little
girl--she of the golden hair, who wiped my stain away.

"But she is dead. I know for sure the face. What it means I know not.
Again I fall as dead.

"I have one thing in the world left--only one; it is my scissors-grinder.
I sell it and give all the money to bury her. It is the first--it is the
only good I ever did. Then, an outcast, I go out into the world where no
pity is. I sit me down in a dark alley; strange is my heart, and new.

"It is time for the guns--yet is my blood warm! I wait. The volley
comes not!

"The hour is past!

"'My Gott! My Gott!' I say. 'Can this be true?' I wait one, two, three
minutes; it comes not. I scream for joy--I scream loud! I feel an iron
hand on me. I am put in prison. Yet is the prison filled with
light--yet am I in heaven. The guns are silent."

One day a big letter with several patches of red sealing-wax and an
aristocratic monogram arrived at the bunk-house.

Nearly two hundred men handled it and stood around until the Graf
arrived. Every one felt a personal i