"My lord," continued Drost Peter, "take counsel, now, with the all-knowing God and your own conscience. I leave the agreement in your hands: you may destroy or subscribe it, as you think best. Till the sun goes down, I may await your determination; and, in twenty-four hours, the doors of your prison stand open on these terms. The moment you have subscribed, pull the bell-string there, and your prison will be opened. Meantime I leave you, with the hope that you will consider your temporal, as you would your eternal welfare. Mistake not, in this matter, either my master the king, or myself. The all-knowing God and all holy men are my witnesses, that nothing is here done out of hatred of yourself. I dare witness before God, at the last day, that I have only dealt towards you according to my oath, and my duty to the crown and kingdom." So saying, Drost Peter bowed, and hastily left the turret-chamber, not without emotion, and a strong feeling of melancholy interest in the imprisoned duke. The prison-door was again closed and locked. On the table lay the important parchment, and by its side the silver style, which Drost Peter had left for the purpose of signing. Sir Abildgaard regarded his master with a disturbed and inquiring look. The duke was pacing the floor with agitated steps: his eyes rolled wildly, and his cheeks were flashed with anger. "Never, never shall I subscribe this hellish paction!" he exclaimed, "if I must sit here till the day of my death. If I subscribe, with a solemn oath, what stands here, I must either renounce the great object of my life, or become a perjurer and a nidding to all the world. Nay, nay, never shall this be so! I will show them that Duke Waldemar does not value his miserable dukedom higher than his honour and free unconstrained will. I will not foully and basely sell them my soul and my will's freedom, to breathe the air in a larger prison, like a debased, mean-spirited slave. Now, Tuko, now is the time to think seriously of escape, and to burst these walls by craft or violence, or any other possible mode. Let me once stand free, beyond this infernal prison--beyond the bounds of Denmark, and I shall no longer hesitate about what, in my sickly humour, I was well nigh on the point of relinquishing. I shall then shake the dust from my feet, and never more place them on Danish ground until I stand here at the head of an army that shall overthrow the tyrant's throne, crushing beneath it him and all his wretched advisers." "Were only the first step taken," replied the knight, with a shrug--"were we once our own masters, I should heartily admire your lofty thoughts and brave conclusions; but so long as your great adviser can only speak to you from these walls, and cannot, as a potent spirit should, blow them away like cobwebs, so long, gracious sir, are all your heroic schemes but castles in the air--mere beautiful dreams, which but poorly compensate the loss of a free joyous life and Sleswick's ducal crown."