'I am the same, my worthy master,' said Alf, approaching and taking his hand, while his tears flowed more mildly. 'This is the finger of God!' exclaimed Trutlinger, and a feeble light relumed his eyes. 'These girls are orphans--their last protector goes to the grave in me. The thought that I must leave their inexperienced youth behind me without protection in this den of murderers, renders my death most afflicting. You were always a good and capable man, Kippenbrock. Promise, then, to your dying master, with the hand and word of a man, that you will shelter and protect these poor children according to the best of your ability.' Alf cast a friendly glance upon the protegés confided to him. The dark-haired young maiden gleamed upon him with a burning glance, while Clara timidly cast her blue eyes upon the ground. The heart of the youth swelled. He quickly pressed Trutlinger's cold hand and cried, 'I promise it.' 'God reward thee!' faintly uttered the hoary man, his head sank hack and his lacerated breast labored with the death-struggle. Yet once more he suddenly opened his eyes. All radiant were they raised toward heaven. 'Yes,' cried he aloud and joyfully,--'yes, thou hast forgiven the son of earth his errors! I see thy brightness!'--and he was no more. 'Lord, deal not with him in judgment!' prayed the enthusiastic young woman, with pious zeal. 'My second father!' cried Clara, mildly weeping, and, bending down over the dead body, she softly kissed his pale lips. 'No,' cried Alf, with angry grief, 'this sentence was not pronounced and executed in accordance with thy will, Spirit of Mercy!' CHAPTER II. The next morning Alf stepped into the apartment of his kinsman, Gerhard Kippenbrock, to salute him. The good old man, a worthy butcher by calling, had by the overthrow of all established customs been made second burgomaster of the imperial free city of Munster, without clearly knowing how that precise result had been attained. He advanced to meet the new comer, uncommonly magnificent in his black official dress, with the lace collar and golden chain of honor, and introduced him to a large, raw-boned, meagre man, in a similar dress, who sat at the table staring on vacancy with half-extinguished eyes, in which the flashes of a quiet insanity were occasionally playing. 'Thou hast here the best opportunity to recommend thyself to the favor of our first burgomaster, of brother Bernd Knipperdolling,' said the elder Kippenbrock to the youth. Alf bowed himself low before the singular man, whose appearance affected him disagreeably, and stammered some expressions of respect. Knipperdolling cast upon him a searching glance, and then said in a hollow and monotonous voice, 'a well formed vessel for the spirit!--thy kinsman, my brother? He may become a bailiff of the city of Zion.'