Emperor as a soldier: and if I die as a soldier, 'twill be no wonder if I, like other soldiers (which cannot always be buried in holy ground, but must be content to lie anywhere on the field in ditches or in the maw of wolf and raven), must make shift outside the churchyard." And so I left the priest, which for his holy zeal for souls had no more return from me than that once I refused him a hare, which he urgently begged from me, on the pretence that since it had hanged itself in a noose and so taken its own life, therefore as a self-murderer it might not be buried in a holy place. _Chap. x._: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS ALL UNEXPECTEDLY QUIT OF HIS MUSQUET So were things no better with me, but the longer the worse. Once did the colonel say to me he would discharge me for a rogue, since I would do no good. But because I knew he meant it not, I said 'twas easy enough, if only he would dismiss the hangman too, to bear me company. So he let it pass, for well could he conceive that I should hold it for no punishment but for a favour if he would let me go: and against my will I must remain a musqueteer and starve till the summer. But the nearer Count von Götz came with his army, the nearer came also my deliverance: for when that general had his headquarters at Bruchsal, my friend Herzbruder, that I had so faithfully helped with my money in the camp before Magdeburg, was sent by the staff on certain business to our fortress, where all shewed him great honour. I was even then sentry before the colonel's quarters, and though he wore a coat of black velvet, yet I knew him at first sight, yet had not the heart to speak to him at once, as fearing lest, after the way of the world, he should be ashamed of me or would not know me, for by his clothes he was now of high rank and I but a lousy musqueteer. But so soon as I was relieved I asked of his servants his name and rank, to be assured that I did not address another in his place, and yet I had not the courage to speak to him, but wrote this billet to him and caused it to be handed to him in the morning by his chamberlain. "Monsieur, etc.,--If it should please my worshipful master by his high influence to deliver one whom he once by his bravery saved from bonds and fetters on the field of Wittstock, from the most miserable condition in the world, into which he hath been tossed like a ball by unkind fortune, 'twould cost him little pains and he would for ever oblige one, in any case his faithful servant but now the most wretched and deserted of men.--S. SIMPLICISSIMUS."