A long, silent procession it was, accompanied step by step by the monotonous cadences of the rising and falling waves along the steep shore, and now and then by the shrill cry of a sea-gull, which, soaring above the gleaming water, might have regarded the strange spectacle with wonder, or by a word whispered from neighbor to neighbor, which those immediately preceding and following did not hear. Thus were uttered the low words which the General spoke to Uncle Ernst as the head of the procession reached the cemetery--"Do you feel yourself equal to the task?" And Uncle Ernst's answer was--"Not until now have I felt myself equal to it." Even Reinhold and Else, who walked behind them, would not have understood it if they had heard, nor had Uncle Ernst shown to any one but the General the dispatch of which Justus had spoken. The dispatch of serious content in the dry, matter-of-fact style of the police: Philip Schmidt recognized tonight when about to embark on the steamer _Hansa_, bound from Bremerhafen to Chile, shot himself with a revolver in his stateroom, leaving the embezzled money untouched; will be interred tomorrow evening at six o'clock. There, under the broad hand which he slipped under his overcoat, lay the paper, and his great heart beat against it--beat again truly strong and truly proud, now that he could say to himself that his unfortunate son did not belong to the cowards to whom life is everything; that for him, too, there was a measure of disgrace which must not overflow, because in that moment he drained the beaker of life--a draught too insipid and loathsome even for his unhallowed lips. The caskets were lowered into a common grave. At its head stood Uncle Ernst, bareheaded, and, before him in a wide semicircle, the throng, bareheaded, silent, looking up to the powerful man whose almost gigantic figure towered above the hills against the ruddy evening sky. Now he raised his piercing eyes, which seemed to take in at a glance the whole assemblage: and now his deep voice sounded, its clear tones making every word distinct, even to the outer edge of the circle. "My friends, one and all--I may call you so, for in the presence of such a great misfortune, such a fearful catastrophe, all are friends who have human faces. "My friends! This--it had to be! It had to be! It had to be, because we had so basely, so utterly forgotten love; because we had lived on so long through the hopeless years, in barren selfishness, drowning the longing cry of our hearts with the empty sound of our iron conceit, ceaselessly keeping up the vain struggle for mine and thine--the fierce, wild struggle--without a blush and without mercy, wishing no peace, giving no pardon, regarding no right but that of the victor, who scornfully treads the vanquished under foot.