Count Ingelheim walked thoughtfully to and fro before the house, and looked up from time to time with an anxious expression at the king's windows. Groups of officers stood around in animated conversation. They knew that a Prussian envoy was with the king, and all these brave young officers, thirsting for the battle, feared nothing more than that they should capitulate without fighting. "We could never again be seen in a Hanoverian uniform," cried a young officer of one of the Guard regiments with a rosy childish face, as he stamped with his foot, "if we were ensnared without drawing the sword, as in a mousetrap. We have been marching a fortnight, now here, now there; now waiting for the Bavarians, then for the Hessians, and never going forwards. So much was expected from this new commander; and now ..." An eager young officer on a swift horse galloped up in the Guard Jäger uniform, the star of a commander of the order of Ernest Augustus on his breast. He threw himself from the saddle, gave his horse to his servant, who had hastened after him, and walked up to the group of officers. "Well, prince," cried the lieutenant in the Guards, "where do you come from so hastily?" "I have ridden out a little amongst the troops," replied Prince Hermann von Solms-Braunfels, the king's youngest nephew, as he endeavoured to seize the down just shading his upper lip with his fingers. "I am in despair, for in spite of my earnest request the king has commanded me to be here at head-quarters, but from time to time I must escape into the free life of the camp, and enjoy a little fresh air. Where are you stationed, Herr von Landesberg?" he inquired of the young lieutenant. "Here in Langensalza," he replied, "fretting over the inactivity imposed upon us by the general staff. The king should just listen to us, the young officers of the army; he would soon be convinced that the army was ready both to march and to fight." "God knows it is so," exclaimed an hussar officer, drawing his long moustache through his fingers; "I cannot comprehend why we have a general staff only to arrange such marches as we have made. I have heard an old story of the Crusaders, or some such people," continued the hussar drily, "who let a goose go before them, and followed the line of march pursued by the fowl. That was both a simpler and a kinder course, for now they strip the poor bird of its feathers and write with them night and day--and nothing more clever comes of it." "See, there comes the Prussian envoy back!" cried Herr von Landesberg, and the officers approached the Schützhaus, at the door of which Colonel Döring, accompanied by General von Brandis and Count Platen, appeared. Whilst General von Brandis called the carriage and ordered a guard of four dragoons to accompany it, Count Platen politely took leave of the Prussian colonel and hastened to Count Ingelheim, who met him full of anxiety.