st in the key, indeed, but with no more faith than if I had been
bidden to put it into a mouse-hole.

Nevertheless, it turned easy as thinking, and a little door swung open,
cunningly fitted. Here were dresses, books, parchments huddled together.

"Bring all these to me," he said.

And I brought them carefully in my arms and laid them on the bed.

The eye of old Dessauer fell on something among them and was instantly
fascinated. It was a woman's waist-belt of thick bars of gold laid three
and three, with crests and letters all over it.

The Chancellor put his hand forward for it, and my father allowed him to
take it, following him, however, with a questioning eye.

Then Dessauer put his hand into his bosom and drew out a chain of
gold--the necklace of the woodman, in-deed--and laid the two side by
side. He uttered a shrill cry as he did so.

"The belt of the lost Princess!" he cried; "the little Princess of
Plassenburg!"

And, laying them one above the other, each group of six bars read thus:

[Illustration:
o o o H o o o H o o o H o o o
| | |
o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o The Necklace
| | |
o o o L o o o L o o o L o o o

o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o
| | |
o o o N o o o N o o o N o o o The Belt
| | |
o o o E o o o E o o o E o o o]

With delight on his face, like that of a mathematician when his
calculations work out truly, Dessauer reached over his hand for the
papers also, but my father stayed him.

"Who may you be that has a chain to match mine?" he asked, with his
mighty hand on Dessauer's wrist.

"I am the State's Chancellor of Plassenburg, and it needed but this to
show me our true Princess."

"Here, then," said my father, "is more and better."

And he handed him the papers.

"It meets! It meets!" cried Dessauer, enthusiastically, as he glanced
them over. "It is complete. It would stand probation in the Dict of
the Emperor."

"But yet all that will not prevent Helene Gottfried dying at the stake!"
cried my father, sadly, and fell back unconscious on his bed.

* * * * *

We spent this heaviest of nights at the palace of Bishop Peter--Dessauer
with the prelate--I, praise to the holy pyx, in the kitchen with the
serving men and maids. Peter