A fine June morning was shining upon the camp, as Alf and Clara stood
waiting with their escort before the tent of the commander in chief.
There came out of the tent a tall, meagre clergyman, in his black
clerical dress. He started when he saw the youth, and asked the
serjeant, 'who are these people?'
'Deserters from Munster,' answered the serjeant, 'whom we found last
night. They insist upon seeing the general.'
The preacher having closely scrutinized Alf, who stood there absorbed
in his own reflections, approached and spoke to him, taking his hand in
the most friendly manner. 'Do I see you again as a deserter? Now, God
be praised, my prophecy is fulfilled!'
'Reverend doctor!' cried Alf in joyful surprise, as he recognised the
good Fabricius.
'So, the disorders in the new Zion have become too great for you?'
asked the latter. 'I only wonder that you had not come to the
conclusion long ago,--that with your heart and head you could for so
long a time have been a contented observer of their pagan cruelty.'
'When Germans have once become united with a ruler chosen by
themselves, worthy sir,' answered Alf, 'they can be disunited only by
hard blows, else they will hang fast to him until death.'
'The hard blows, I perceive, have been given and received,' said
Fabricius. 'So you have again become one of us.'
'With all my heart and soul,' answered Alf with great ardor.
'We will leave the remainder of this for the confessional, where I may
soon expect you,' said Fabricius. 'At present I must exert myself to
prepare for you a good reception from the commanding general.'
Again most cordially shaking Alf's hand, he passed into the tent.
Shortly afterward the youth and his girl-boy were bid to enter. Lord
Oberstein was sitting with the doctor at the field table, taking his
morning draught.
'Come nearer!' commanded the general, sternly.
'What have you to disclose to me?'
The voice of the questioner satisfied Alf, that it was the commander in
chief whom he had caught and released on a former night; he however
concealed this recognition.
'To make an end of the calamities of the city,' answered he, 'I am
prepared to show your soldiers a way to enter Munster--the same way by
which I have myself quitted it.'
'I recognise that voice!' cried Oberstein, springing up, and stepping
directly in front of the youth. 'We have met before,' said he; 'it
surely was in the outworks before the new gate, by moonlight. You were
the officer who took me prisoner and then let me run? Is it not so?'
'I was very glad,' answered Alf, 'that it was in my power to save so
old and merry a warrior.'
'And now are you willing to deliver the city to me?' proceeded
Oberstein; 'to make a short ending to her long sufferings? You make me
doubly your debtor; your reward shall be great.'
'Of myself little need be said,' answered Alf. 'My conditions are only
pardon for myself and my companion, and that the conqueror of the city
shall distinguish between the miscreants who have wilfully erred, and
those who with honest intentions have been led astray, and spare the
latter.'
'We must act according to the instructions of the diet of Worms,' said
Oberstein. 'Whoever has not belonged to the leaders, and come not
against us in arms, to them is given life and freedom.'
'Then should the lord bishop,' boldly replied Alf, 'have extended mercy
to the unhappy refugees who have lately been fleeing from the city.'
'The bishop was exceedingly exasperated by events which accompanied the
revolution!' answered the general, shrugging his shoulders; 'and an
angry man does not always what is right in the sight of God.'
His eyes now fell upon Clara, who had timidly placed herself in an
angle of the tent near the door.
'Who is that pretty boy?' asked he. 'Some one of the bishop's pages? It
is to be hoped so. Two pages were made prisoners by the anabaptists and
carried off at the time they attacked our camp at the beginning of the
siege. To one of them particularly the worthy bishop was attached by a
truly paternal affection.'
'Those boys have also fallen a sacrifice to the barbarity of the king,'
answered Alf. 'This maiden is the sister of the queen Eliza, who paid
with her head for having lamented the murder of the innocents.'
'Great God, what an accumulation of crime!' cried Oberstein, while
Fabricius with upraised finger reprovingly asked, 'have you brought
with you a maiden in man's attire? Must there not yet remain something
of the old anabaptist leaven in you, which may in time again leaven the
whole lump, destroying your morals for time and eternity?'
'All in honor, dear doctor,' protested Alf; 'and I shall have to
request you, as soon as may be convenient, to unite me in honorable
marriage with this blameless maiden, who is my beloved and betrothed
bride.'
'That alters the case,' said Fabricius, affectionately patting Clara's
velvet cheeks. 'May God keep us in the good old order.'
'The lord bishop's reverend and princely grace,' said an episcopalian
officer, stepping in, 'sends his compliments to the lord general and
politely requests him to repair immediately to his presence. An
anabaptist prisoner has brought before him some matters of consequence,
which demand a sudden meeting of the council.'
'Yon shall accompany me there,' said Oberstein to Alf.
'But where shall I remain?' anxiously whispered Clara to her betrothed.
'May I be permitted to confide the maiden to your care, worthy sir?'
asked Alf of the doctor.
'I will foster and protect her like a beloved daughter,' answered
Fabricius, taking Clara by the hand, and with a light heart the youth
then followed the general.