'Send to the merchant Engelmann,' said Dorn; 'who must have left his prison last evening; and Madam Rosen must yet have the letter which she wrote to Schweidnitz and which I brought back to her as my credential.'
'Here is the unlucky letter,' sobbed the trembling widow, handing it to the duke on bended knee.
He took it, read, and turned towards the captain.
'We have your portrait here,' said he; 'not flattered, but well drawn. Did you know the object of his coming here?'
The captain replied only by stammering some unintelligible words.
'He wished to prevent their departure,' said Dorn.
'To know and keep silence, is called lying!' observed the duke, with anger. Then to Dorn, 'you have, however, abused the emperor!'
'That is not true!' cried the latter with vehemence. 'He drank the emperor's health with the captain!' cried the trembling Faith, encouraged by her anxiety for the youth. 'I and my mother are witnesses, and because he drank the emperor's health, the captain pretended that he had enlisted for a soldier.'
'Shame upon you!' thundered the duke. 'Has a lord who has all Europe for a recruiting ground, need of such miserable devices?'
'Here is a heretic conspiracy,' cried the captain, 'planned for my destruction. This woman is secretly a Lutheran, together with her daughter. Already have I twice watched their stolen attendance upon the preacher of Eckensdorf. For that reason they have called the Mannsfelder here, that he may take them to heretical Schweidnitz, where they can practise their idolatry undisturbedly; and because, out of zeal for the true faith, I wished to prevent their heathenish abominations, I am calumniated by the apostate women and their accomplice.'