e fancied that an enemy had indeed cut the dykes
somewhere--a pin-hole enough to wreck the ship of Holland, or at least
this portion of it, which underwent an inundation of the sea the like
of which had not occurred in that province for half a century. Only,
when the body of Sebastian was found, apparently not long after death,
a child lay asleep, swaddled warmly in his heavy furs, in an upper room
of the old tower, to which the tide was almost risen; though the
building still stood firmly, and still with the means of life in
plenty. And it was in the saving of this child, with a great effort, as
certain circumstances seemed to indicate, that Sebastian had lost his
life.

His parents were come to seek him, believing him bent on
self-destruction, and were almost glad to find him thus. A learned
physician, moreover, endeavoured to comfort his mother by remarking
that in any case he must certainly have died ere many years were
passed, slowly, perhaps painfully, of a disease then coming into the
world; disease begotten by the fogs of that country--waters, he
observed, not in their place, "above the firmament"--on people grown
somewhat over-delicate in their nature by the effects of modern luxury.

CHAPTER IV. DUKE CARL OF ROSENMOLD

One stormy season about the beginning of the present century, a great
tree came down among certain moss-covered ridges of old masonry which
break the surface of the Rosenmold heath, exposing, together with its
roots, the remains of two persons. Whether the bodies (male and female,
said German bone-science) had been purposely buried there was
questionable. They seemed rather to have been hidden away by the
accident, whatever it was, which had caused death--crushed, perhaps,
under what had been the low wall of a garden--being much distorted, and
lying, though neatly enough discovered by the upheaval of the soil, in
great confusion. People's attention was the more attracted to the
incident because popular fancy had long run upon a tradition of buried
treasures, golden treasures, in or about the antiquated ruin which the
garden boundary enclosed; the roofless shell of a small but
solidly-built stone house, burnt or overthrown, perhaps in the time of
the wars at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Many persons went
to visit the remains lying out on the dark, wild plateau, which
stretches away above the tallest roofs of the old grand-ducal town,
very distinctly outlined, on that day, i