nt; after a little, he orders his Bursch: 'Bursch, ride you to
Siebenhuben and Curatus Schmidt, with this sealed Letter; YOU, and say
nothing. I was to have gone myself, but cannot; be speedy, be discreet!'
And the Bursch dashes off for Siebenhuben with the sealed Copy, for
Schmidt, Warkotsch, Wallis and Company's behoof; Kappel riding, at a
still better pace, to Strehlen with the Original, for behoof of the
King's Majesty.

"At Strehlen, King's Majesty not yet visible, Kappel has great
difficulties in the anteroom among the sentry people. But he persists,
insists: 'Read my Letter, then!' which they dare not do; which only
Colonel Krusemark, the Adjutant, perhaps dare. They take him to
Krusemark. Krusemark reads, all aghast; locks up Kappel; runs to the
King; returns, muffles Kappel in soldier's cloak and cap, and leads him
in. The King, looking into Kappel's face, into Kappel's clear story
and the Warkotsch handwriting, needed only a few questions; and the
fit orders, as to Warkotsch and Company, were soon given: dangerous
engineers now fallen harmless, blown up by their own petard. One of the
King's first questions was: 'But how have I offended Warkotsch?' Kappel
does not know; Master is of strict wilful turn;--Master would grumble
and growl sometimes about the peasant people, and how a nobleman has
now no power over them, in comparison. 'Are you a Protestant?' 'No, your
Majesty, Catholic.' 'See, IHR HERREN,' said the King to those about him;
'Warkotsch is a Protestant; his Curatus Schmidt is a Catholic; and this
man is a Catholic: there are villains and honest people in every creed!'

"At noon, that day, Warkotsch had sat down to dinner, comfortably in
his dressing-gown, nobody but the good Baroness there; when Rittmeister
Rabenau suddenly descended on the Schloss and dining-room with dragoons:
'In arrest, Herr Baron; I am sorry you must go with me to Brieg!'
Warkotsch, a strategic fellow, kept countenance to Wife and Rittmeister,
in this sudden fall of the thunder-bolt: 'Yes, Herr Rittmeister; it is
that mass of Corn I was to furnish [showing him an actual order of that
kind], and I am behind my time with it! Nobody can help his luck. Take
a bit of dinner with us, anyway!' Rittmeister refused; but the Baroness
too pressed him; he at length sat down. Warkotsch went 'to dress;' first
of all, to give orders about his best horse; but was shocked to find
that the dragoons were a hundred, and that every outgate was beset.