'Is it you, my good captain?' exclaimed he, taking Arwed's hand. Then, looking at his companions, he sighed, 'Alas! poor, poor, children!' 'Where is my father?' asked Georgina in an almost inaudible tone, sinking down upon a stool. 'In the next room,' answered Rank. 'Conradi is with him.' 'What are you reading there, general?' asked Arwed without interest, merely to break the painful silence. 'The epitaph of our friend,' answered Rank, handing the paper to him. 'He sketched it himself.' Georgina had sprung from her seat, and hanging upon Arwed's arm, looked with him upon the manuscript. 'Read aloud,' said she. 'Something like a dense cloud waves before my eyes. I cannot see the letters.' 'Will it not prove too great a trial for you?' asked Arwed with tender care. 'I am here,' she answered, 'to take a last leave of my father, before his death by the sword of the executioner. What else can shake me?' Struggling to suppress his tears, Arwed proceeded to read: 'A la veille de conclure un grand traite de paix, mon héros périt, la royauté avec lui. Dieu veuille qu'il n'arrive pis! Je meurs aussi. C'est toujours mourir en magnifique compagnie, quand on meurt avec son roi et la royauté.' 'Very true!' exclaimed Georgina. 'The ruins of royalty are a worthy mausoleum for the great man; but his children despair.' Arwed continued: 'Mors regis, fidesque in regem et ducem, mors mea.' 'That means?' asked Georgina in a faint voice. 'The death of the king and fidelity to him and to the duke are the cause of his death.' 'Alas, how true!' sighed Georgina, and, breaking out in a flood of tears, she sunk upon Arwed's shoulder. The door of the adjoining room now opened, and Goertz entered with a serene countenance, followed by the weeping Conradi. 'Father!' shrieked his daughters, throwing themselves into his arms. 'My dear children!' cried he, joyfully pressing them to his bosom, and kissing them tenderly. 'If that adamantine heart were here,' said Arwed to Conradi, with deep emotion, 'this scene would yet melt it.' 'I thank God that the queen is not here,' answered the latter. 'She would remain inexorable, and thus aggravate her responsibility in the next world.' The outer prison door was now opened, and with a brutal air colonel Baumgardt walked into the room. He was followed by chief judge Hylten, who appeared yet more miserable than before, leaning upon his clerk. The outer hall was soon filled with Swedish grenadiers. 'Goertz, your time has come!' cried Baumgardt, roughly. 'In God's name, your blessing, my father!' cried Greorgina, kneeling and drawing Magdalena down with her to his feet. 'Continue good!' cried Goertz in a broken voice, laying his hands upon their heads, 'so that I may give a good account of you to your mother, and that you may say joyfully to your God, when you come after me, Father, here am I, and here are those whom thou hast given me.' 'Amen!' said Conradi, moving towards the door.