"No, your majesty,—I did not open it," replied the colonel.
"You did well," said the king, "for a wasp had crept within it, which might have given you a deadly wound. Go now, and take this letter to Trenck, and take his sword from him. He is under arrest, and must be sent at once to the fortress at Glatz."
"Must it be quietly done?" asked Jaschinsky, scarcely able to conceal his delight.
"No, on the contrary, I wish the whole army, the whole world to know why I have punished Trenck. You can say to every one that Trenck is a traitor, who has carried on an unlawful correspondence with his cousin in Austria, and has conspired with the enemy. His arrest must be public, and he must be sent to Glatz, guarded by fifty hussars. Go now and attend to this business.—He is lost," said the king, solemnly, when he was once more alone. "Trenck is condemned, and Amelia must struggle with her grief. Poor Amelia!"
The generals were waiting outside, among them the favorite of the king, General Rothenberg. They had been summoned to a council by the king, and were awaiting his orders to enter the tent.
But the king did not call them, perhaps he had forgotten them. He walked slowly up and down in his tent, apparently lost in thought. Suddenly he stood motionless and listened. He heard the tramp of many horses, and he knew what it meant. He approached the opening of the tent, and drew back the curtain sufficiently to see without being seen.
The noise of the horses' hoofs came nearer and nearer. The first hussars have passed the king's tent, and two more, and again two, and again, and again; and there in their midst, a pale young man, with a distracted countenance, with staring eyes, and colorless lips, which appear never to have known how to laugh, a young officer, without sword or epaulettes. Is this Trenck, the beautiful, the young, the light-hearted Trenck, the beloved of a princess, the darling of all the ladies, the envied favorite of the king? He has passed the tent of the king; behind him are his servants with his horses and his baggage; and then again hussars, who close the procession, the burial-procession of Trenck's happiness and freedom.
The king seemed deeply moved as he stepped back from the curtain. "Now," he said solemnly, "I have committed my first act of injustice; for I judged this man in my own conscience, without bringing him before a court-martial. Should the world condemn me for this, I can at least say that it is my only fault of the kind."