no suspicion why I sent for you?"

"Your royal highness has just informed me you kindly wished to indemnify
me for my two former visits."

"You are a good diplomatist; you turn quickly about, are as smooth as
an eel, cannot be taken hold of, but slip through one's fingers. I am
accustomed to go at once to the point--I cannot diplomatize. See here,
why I wished to see you--I wished to show you this cup."

She took the cup hastily from the table, and gave it to the ambassador.
He gazed at it long and earnestly; he turned it around, looking at
every picture, reading every verse. Amelia watched him keenly, but his
countenance betrayed nothing. He was as smiling, as unembarrassed as
before. When he had looked at it attentively, he placed it on the table.

"Well, what do you think of the workmanship?" said Amelia.

"It is wonderful, worthy of an artist, your royal highness."

"And do you know by what artist it was made?"

"I suspect it, your royal highness."

"Give me his name?"

"I think he is called Frederick von Trenck."

"It is so, and if I do not err, he is your relative?"

"My distant relative--yes, your royal highness."

"And can you bear to have your relative in chains? Does not your heart
bleed for his sufferings?"

"He suffers justly, I presume, or he would not have been condemned."

"Were he the greatest criminal that lived, it would still be a crime to
make him suffer perpetually. A man's sleep is sacred, be he a criminal
or a murderer. Let them kill the criminal, but they should not murder
sleep. Look at this picture, general; look at this prisoner lying
upon the hard floor; he has been torn from his dreams of freedom and
happiness by the rough voice of the soldier standing at his door. Read
the verse beneath it--is not every word of it bathed in tears? Breathes
there not a cry of terror throughout so fearful, so unheard-of, that it
must resound in every breast? And you, his relative, you will not hear
him? You will do nothing to free this unfortunate man from his prison?
You, the Austrian ambassador, suffer an officer of your empress
to remain a prisoner in a strange land, without a trial, without a
hearing."

"When my empress sent me here, she gave me her instructions, and she
informed me of the extent and character of my duties. She did not
request me to exert myself for the release of this unfortunate prisoner,
that is entirely beyond my sphere of action, and I must be discreet."

"You must