wer! His friends seconded him in
striving to attain this great end. Everywhere they were active, everywhere
they sought to work for him and to procure him adherents. At Spandow and
Berlin the Commandants von Kracht and von Rochow declared themselves ready
to place garrison and fortress entirely under his direction; Colonel von
Goldacker, commandant of Brandenburg, had betaken himself to his post, and
only awaited the count's word to sound the tocsin of war. In Koenigsberg
the Court Marshal von Waldow was most energetically massing the friends of
Schwarzenberg, and his brother, Sebastian von Waldow, traveled from place
to place, to gain friends and partisans for Count John Adolphus, and to
ask them to come to Berlin, that, in case of danger, the count might be
prepared to make a bold front against his foes. His friends everywhere led
a life of bustle and stir, and all proclaimed themselves ready joyfully to
unsheathe their swords in behalf of the young count, and to do battle for
him if the Elector should refuse to confirm him in all his father's
appointments.

"He will not refuse," said John Adolphus to himself, when he had just
finished reading the report of his agent, Otto von Marwitz, which had only
that morning reached him, "No, the weak, impotent Elector will not dare to
refuse to acknowledge me as my father's successor; for he must be well
aware that I am even now more powerful in the Mark than himself, and
enjoy, moreover, the favor and protection of the Emperor. He will not dare
to attack me. I shall be sustained by him in my position of Stadtholder in
the Mark, and then--from Stadtholder to independent Sovereign requires but
one step, which I mean to take, and--"

The door was violently burst open and Sebastian von Waldow rushed in.

"Count!" he cried, gasping for breath--"Count, we are lost!"

"What is the matter? Say, what is the matter?"

"Conrad von Burgsdorf has captured the letters sent to you and myself,
from Koenigsberg, by my brother, the marshal, in which was a full statement
of a plan for open war."

"For God's sake, who says so? How do you know that?"

"One of our secret friends, who keeps his eye upon Burgsdorf, came to tell
me, that I might have opportunity of warning you. In the course of a ride
taken by Burgsdorf and his men in the environs of Berlin, they captured
the servant whom my brother had intrusted with dispatches for you and
myself.[48] The dispatches he sent forthwith by a courie