“I swear to live so long as there is hope, so long as I am free! I swear only to think of death when my liberty is threatened!” Slowly his glance returned to earth, and then in a powerful voice, he cried: “Onward! onward! that has ever been Prussia’s watch-word, and it shall remain so—Onward! We have a great object be fore us—we must use every effort to keep the Russians out of Berlin. The palladium of our happiness must not fall into the hands of our enemies. The Oder and the Spree must be ours—we must recover to-morrow what the enemy wrenched from us yesterday!”
“Onward! onward!” cried the army, and the words of the king bore courage and enthusiasm to all hearts.
Hope was awakened, and all were ready to follow the king; for however dark and threatening the horizon appeared, all had faith in the star of the king, and believed that it could never be extinguished.
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I. THE TERESIANI AND THE PRUSSIANI.
At the splendid hotel of the “White Lion,” situated on the Canale Grande, a gondola had just arrived. The porter sounded the great house-bell, and the host hastened immediately to greet the stranger, who, having left the gondola, was briskly mounting the small white marble steps that led to the beautiful and sumptuous vestibule of the hotel.
The stranger returned the host’s profound and respectful salutation with a stiff military bow, and asked in forced and rather foreign Italian if he could obtain rooms.
Signer Montardo gazed at him with a doubtful and uncertain expression, and instead of answering his question, said: