uttering from time to time heart-rending groans. After a long pause,
he slowly lifted his tearful eyes to heaven.

"Thou knowest, my God," he said, in a low voice, "that my intentions
are good and pure, and that I desire nothing but to serve my country
and deliver it from the disgrace which it has had to submit to for
so many years past. Thou knowest that I wish nothing for myself, but
all for the fatherland. Help me, my God, help our poor, unfortunate
Austria! Let us not succumb and perish! Grant victory to our arms! O
Austria, O Germany, why can I not purchase liberty and independence
for you with my blood? But. I can at least I shall welcome this if
my dying eyes can behold liberty dawning upon Germany!"




CHAPTER IX.

'TIS TIME


It was late in the afternoon of the 8th of April. The setting sun
was shedding his last red rays on the distant mountain-crests of the
Janfen and the Timbler Toch, whose blood-red summits contrasted
wonderfully with the deep azure of the clear sky. On the lower
slopes of the mountains twilight had set in; the pines, the daring
chamois of the vegetable kingdom, which had climbed up to the
highest parts of the mountains, cast the gray veil of dusk over
these lower slopes. Below, in the Passeyr valley, however, night
already prevailed, for the mountains looming up on both sides of the