ey had
told him he could be spared for a while. The second report was that Anna
Sophia had not returned from her visit. They waited for several days,
and as she did not come, Charles Henry went to the distant village
where her aunt lived. But he returned with sad news. Anna Sophia was not
there, her aunt had not seen her.

What had become of her? Where was she? No one could clear up the
mystery. Many spoke of suicide; she had drowned herself in the large
lake to the left of the village they said, because her betrothed had to
leave her. The old pastor would not listen to this; but when the aunt
came to take possession of her niece's worldly goods, he had to bring
forward the will Anna had given him, in which she had willed her all to
Father Buschman. And now no one doubted that Anna had laid hands upon
herself. The mystery remained unsolved. Every one pitied and sympathized
with Charles Henry, who had lost all his former cheerfulness since the
death of his bride!

CHAPTER V. THE PRISONER.

Two years had passed since Frederick von Trenck entered the fortress of
Magdeburg. Two years! What is that to those who live, work, strive, and
fight the battle of life? A short space of time, dashing on with flying
feet, and leaving nothing for remembrance but a few important moments.

Two years! What is that to the prisoner? A gray, impenetrable eternity,
in which the bitter waters of the past fall drop by drop upon all
the functions of life, and hollow out a grave for the being without
existence, who no longer has the courage to call himself a man.
Two years of anxious waiting, of vain hopes, of ever-renewing
self-deception, of labor without result.

This was Trenck's existence, since the day the doors of the citadel
of Magdeburg closed upon him as a prisoner. He had had many bitter
disappointments, much secret suffering; he had learned to know human
nature in all its wickedness and insignificance, its love of money and
corruption, but also in its greatness and exaltation, and its constancy
and kindness.

Amongst the commandants and officers of the fortress whose duty it was
to guard Trenck, there were many hard and cruel hearts, which exulted
in his tortures, and who, knowing the king's personal enmity to him,
thought to recommend themselves by practising the most refined cruelties
upon the defenceless prisoner. But he had also found warm human souls,
who pitied his misfortunes, and who sought, by every possible mean