The crowd fell back, and the word was given. Eisendecker raised his weapon, poised it for a second in his hand, and then, elevating it above his head, brought it gradually down, till, from the position where I stood, I could see that he aimed at the heart. His hand was now motionless, as if it were marble; while his eye, riveted on his antagonist, seemed to be fixed on one small spot, as though his whole vengeance was to be glutted there. Never was suspense more dreadful, and I stood breathless, in the expectation of the fatal flash, when, with a jerk of his arm, he threw up the pistol and fired above his head; and then, with a heart-rending cry of ‘Mein bruder, mein brader!’ he rushed into Mühry’s arms, and fell into a torrent of tears. The scene was indeed a trying one, and few could witness it unmoved. As for me, I turned away completely overcome; while my heart found vent in thankfulness that such a fearful beginning should end thus happily. ‘Yes,’ said Eisendecker, as we rode home together that evening, when, after a long silence, he spoke; ‘yes, I had resolved to kill him; but when my finger was even on the trigger, I saw a look upon his features that reminded me of those earlier and happier days when we had but one home and one heart, and I felt as if I was about to become the murderer of my brother.’ Need I add that they were friends for ever after? But I must leave Göttingen and its memories too. They recall happy days, it is true; but they who made them so--where are they? CHAPTER XXII. SPAS AND GRAND DUKEDOMS It was a strange ordinance of the age that made watering-places equally the resort of the sick and the fashionable, the dyspeptic and the dissipated. One cannot readily see by what magic chalybeates can minister to a mind diseased, nor how sub-carbonates and proto-chlorides may compensate to the faded spirit of an _ennuyée_ fine lady for the bygone delights of a London or a Paris season; much less, through what magnetic influence gambling and gossip can possibly alleviate affections of the liver, or roulette be made a medical agent in the treatment of chronic rheumatism.