y the Minister begs your Highness to open this
immediately."

The Prince opened the letter, and took out a printed sheet; a red line
ran along the margin of it like a streak of blood. The Prince began to
read, he looked up from the page towards Sonnenkamp: he read on
farther, the paper cracked and trembled in his hand; he laid it down on
the table and said:--

"Confounded audacity!" Sonnenkamp was standing at the table, and it
seemed to him as if the two telegraphic knobs had changed into eyes,
one white and one black, and from the green table a fabulous creature
of strange form was shaping itself,--a queer monster with a white and a
black eye, and that it was emerging from the deep, moving along
sluggishly, and staggering from side to side. As if in the frenzy of
fever he sat there collecting all his strength. The Prince, looking now
at the paper, now at Sonnenkamp, at last walked up to him and held out
the paper; the rustle of it was like the stab of a knife as he said:--

"Here, read it--read it."

Printed in large letters on it were these words marked with red ink:--

"A humble suggestion for a coat-of-arms and escutcheon for the ennobled
slave-trader and slave-killer, James Heinrich Sonnenkamp, formerly
Banfield, from Louisiana--"

Sonnenkamp read only these words, and then stared up at the Prince, on
whose face was a distorted smile.

"Give me your hand," said the Prince, "give me your hand and tell me,
on your word of honor, that it is a lie. Give me your hand, and we will
then crush the impudent scoundrels."

Sonnenkamp staggered back, as if a shot had struck him. What was all
that he had enjoyed in life compared with the anguish of this moment?

He stretched out his hand doubled up, as if he wished to say: I can
break you like a slender twig. But he opened his hand, and held it on
high with the forefinger pointing to heaven.

Then suddenly there appeared in front of him a large powerful negro,
rolling his eyes and showing his teeth.

With a cry more like that of a wild beast than of a human being,
Sonnenkamp fell backwards upon his chair.

The figure in front of him gave a yell, and behind him yelled
another--it was Adams, who had rushed in.

"Prince! master!" cried the negro, "this is the man who took me, who
carried me off as a slave, and pitched me into the water. Let him only
show his finger, it still bears the mark of my teeth. Let me have him,
let me have him! I'll suck his blood for him,