Break iron and bolts,
The songs in your woods
Shall fly back to you."]
In the next compartment was again a cage, containing a bird, and on the
branch of a tree under which the cage was placed, perched another bird,
with fluttering wings and open beak; underneath was written--
"Le rossignol chante, voici la raison,
Pourquoi il est pris pour chanter en prison;
Voyez le moineau qui fait tant de dommage,
Jouir de la vie sans craindre la cage.
Voila un portrait,
Qui montre l'effet
Du bonheur des fripons du desastre des sages."
[Footnote: "The nightingale sings, and this is the reason
That he is taken to sing in a prison.
See now the sparrow, who does so much evil,
Plays with life without fear of cages.
See in this portrait,
Which shows the effect
Of the good luck of rogues, and the misfortune of sages."]
Amelia could not control herself; she could look no longer. She rarely
wept, but now her eyes were filled with tears. They fell upon the cup,
as if to kiss the letters which had recalled so many touching and sad
remembrances. But she had no time for tears, she must read on! With an
involuntary movement, she dashed the tears from her eyes, and fixed them
steadily upon the cup.
Here was another picture. In a cell lay a skeleton form, the hands and
the feet bound with heavy chains. The figure had raised itself slightly
from the straw bed and gazed with an agonized expression at the grating
in the wall, behind which the grim-bearded face of a soldier was seen,
who, with wide-open mouth seemed to be calling angrily to the prisoner.
Beneath this stood some verses in German. [Footnote: See memoirs of
Trenck, Thiebault, in which Trenck describes one of these cups and the
fate which befell it. One of them was engraved for the Landgrave of
Hesse, and in this way fell into the hands of the Emperor Joseph the
Second, who kept it in his art cabinet. Another, which had been once
in possession of the wife of Frederick the Great, Trenck afterward
recovered in Paris. Some of these cups are still to be seen in art
collections in Germany, and some are in the museum in Berlin.] "Oh
fearful! most fearful!" sobbed Amelia; and, completely overcome, her
head sank upon her breast. She cared not that the strange jeweller saw
her tears and heard the despairing cry of her heart; she had nothing to
fear; she had no more to lose. The assembled w
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