"The savages are coming! the savages are coming! the red skins, the savages are coming! Hiawatha! Laughing-water!—The money belongs to the boy; he didn't steal it.—Hats off before the baron, do you hear? fly!—The blacks!—Ah! Franklin!"
Eric offered to request the Commandant for an order to have the band pass through another street, or at least stop playing when passing the hotel.
A sudden thaw having carried away the snow, it was found necessary to spread straw before the whole front of the Hotel Victoria, to deaden the sound of the wheels.
Eric's mother received a most cordial greeting from Sonnenkamp, and did her best to soothe Frau Ceres, who complained that it was horrible to have Roland ill, and that she had to suffer for it, as she was ill herself. At the Mother's suggestion, which Sonnenkamp at once adopted, being only too happy to have anything to do, any new means to try, Dr. Richard, who was familiar with Roland's constitution, was also telegraphed for. He arrived at a late hour of the night, and approved of all that had been done for Roland. He laid his chief injunctions upon Eric and his mother, impressing on them the necessity of guarding themselves as much as possible from the nervous excitement attendant on a life in a sickroom, of taking plenty of rest and amusement, going out often and refreshing their minds with new images. He would not leave them till both had given a promise to this effect.
After a consultation with the attending physician he prepared to depart, but when shaking hands at parting stopped to say:—
"I must warn you against the Countess von Wolfsgarten."
Eric was startled.
"She has remedies for every possible disease; and you must politely but resolutely decline whatever she, in her dictatorial way, may press upon you."
"He is not going to die, is he?" asked Sonnenkamp of the physician, as he stood upon the steps.
The physician replied, that in extreme cases the powers of nature were all we could rely upon.