, repeated
the cry.

The crowd fell back, and the word was given. Eisen-decker raised his
weapon, poised it for a second in his hand, and then, elevating it above
his head, brought it gradually down, till, from the position where I
stood, I could see that he aimed at the heart.

His hand was now motionless, as if it were marble; while his eye,
riveted on his antagonist, seemed to be fixed on one small spot, as
though his whole vengeance was to be glutted there. Never was suspense
more dreadful, and I stood breathless, in the expectation of the fatal
flash, when, with a jerk of his arm, he threw up the pistol and fired
above his head; and then, with a heart-rending cry of 'Mein bruder, mein
brader!' he rushed into Muehry's arms, and fell into a torrent of tears.

The scene was indeed a trying one, and few could witness it unmoved. As
for me, I turned away completely overcome; while my heart found vent in
thankfulness that such a fearful beginning should end thus happily.

'Yes,' said Eisendecker, as we rode home together that evening, when,
after a long silence, he spoke; 'yes, I had resolved to kill him; but
when my finger was even on the trigger, I saw a look upon his features
that reminded me of those earlier and happier days when we had but one
home and one heart, and I felt as if I was about to become the murderer
of my brother.'

Need I add that they were friends for ever after?

But I must leave Goettingen and its memories too. They recall happy days,
it is true; but they who made them so--where are they?

CHAPTER XXII. SPAS AND GRAND DUKEDOMS

It was a strange ordinance of the age that made watering-places equally
the resort of the sick and the fashionable, the dyspeptic and the
dissipated. One cannot readily see by what magic chalybeates can
minister to a mind diseased, nor how sub-carbonates and proto-chlorides
may compensate to the faded spirit of an _ennuyee_ fine lady for the
bygone delights of a London or a Paris season; much less, through what
magnetic influence gambling and gossip can possibly alleviate affections
of the liver, or roulette be made a medical agent in the treatment of
chronic rheumatism.

It may be replied that much of the benefit--some would go farther,
and say all--to be expected from the watering-places is derivable from
change of scene and habit of living, new faces, new interests, new
objects of curiosity, aided by agreeable intercourse, and what the
medical folk call