There was nothing to be said in answer to this, and yet the general felt there was something about the whole affair which he did not understand. A common soldier rarely undertook, voluntarily, a mission which drove him into the arms of death, but the old warrior asked no further questions, he only said: "You will be responsible for the man?"
"Yes," said Egon, quietly but emphatically.
"Good, then you can give him all the necessary instructions; there is one thing more; he must have credentials if he ever reaches our own posts, for any detention would be fatal where every minute counts."
He turned to his writing table, and after setting his seal to a paper, handed it to the prince.
"Here are the necessary papers, and these are the despatches for General Falkenried. Let me know at once whether Tanner was willing to go or not."
"I'll let your excellency know immediately."
Egon hurried to his own quarters, where he ordered his horse to be saddled. In five minutes he was off for Chapel mountain.
Chapel mountain, which the German troops had so christened from the little church which stood on its summit, was one of a subordinate range of hills, which traversed the country in the region where the army corps of the South were quartered. The little church lay desolate and lonely, half buried in the deep snow. Priest and sacristan were gone long since, and the house of God bore traces of demolition, for a deadly battle had been fought on this height. The walls were standing and part of the pointed roof; the rest had been carried away by shot and shell, and the wind whistled through the shattered windows. Ice and snow covered the surrounding wood, and a faint half-moon lit up the whole with a ghastly, uncertain light.
It was a bitter cold night, like that memorable one at Rodeck. A deep red flame lit up the horizon, but it was no northern light this time, no purple glow to lessen the gloom, it was the signal of war, the deep, blood-red flash such as went up from every village and hamlet in Germany, rousing men to action, waving them on to battle and—to death!
A single guard stood at one of the lonely outposts—Hartmut von Falkenried. His eyes were fixed on distant watch fires which from time to time sent up their showers of sparks to heaven. In the distance, warmth and light, here, ice and night. The cold which had been intense all day strengthened with the night, and seemed to freeze out all life from the solitary watch on duty. True there were other sentinels, at various posts, but they were not accustomed to winters in the Orient or in Sicily. Hartmut had spent no winters in the north since his boyhood's days, and the cold seemed to freeze the very blood in his veins.