“What will you give me, if I let you go?” screamed Gabriel Nietzel, tightening his grasp and shaking him violently.  “What will you give me?”

“I will give you a fine house, I will give you thousands, I will give you rank and titles.  Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you!”

“Give me Rebecca!  I want her and her alone!  Tell me where she is or I will kill you!”

“She is in my house at Spandow,” said the count hastily.  “Come, we will go away.  You shall have your Rebecca again.  Come, let us go!  Rebecca is longing for you!  Come!”

“You are deceiving me!” laughed Gabriel Nietzel.  “I see it in your eyes, you are deceiving me.  You want me to open the doors, and then you will call your people.  There is no truth in what you say.  Rebecca is not at Spandow; I know that, for I have been there.  I stood many hours before the windows of your palace and called upon her name.  She would have heard if she had been there; she would have come to me—­she would have freed me from all my sufferings.  For, you must know, my Rebecca loved me!  Because she loved me, that she might expiate the crime which you had tempted me to commit, that she might lift the weight of sin from my head, she went back to Berlin and bade me go on with our child.  I had solemnly sworn that to her, and I kept my oath.  I went on, following the route we had agreed upon together.  I waited for her at every resting place, and always waited in vain.  I came to Venice, and went to the house of Rebecca’s father; but she was not there.  I wanted to go in search of her, but they held me fast, they imprisoned me in a dark dungeon.  And there I sat a whole century, and yet was patient, ever waiting for the moment when I might escape from them and go to look for my Rebecca.  And at last the moment came.  The jailer entered to bring me my food; we were quite alone, and they had taken off my chains, for I had been harmless and gentle for some months past.  I seized him, choked him, so that he could not scream, took his keys, and fled.  God helped me; he always pities the poor and unfortunate—­he knew that I wanted to search for Rebecca.  I came to Germany; I enlisted as a soldier, for I durst not die of hunger, else I could not reach Berlin and find my Rebecca.  But now I am here, and ask you in the name of God and in view of the judgment day, where is Rebecca?”

“I do not know,” murmured Count Schwarzenberg, whom Gabriel Nietzel still held closely pinioned in his grasp.

“You do not know?” shrieked Gabriel Nietzel.  “I read it in your face, you have murdered her.  Yes, yes, I see it, I feel it—­you have murdered her!  Confess it, wretch! fall down upon your knees and confess that you have murdered Rebecca!”

Schwarzenberg would have denied it, but he could not; conscience paralyzed his tongue, so that it could not utter the falsehood.  He wanted to make resistance against those dreadful hands which held him fast, but he had no more power.  Everything swam before him, there was a roaring in his ears, his knees tottered and shook, and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his brow.