He turned to his writing table, and after setting his seal to a paper, handed it to the prince.

“Here are the necessary papers, and these are the despatches for General Falkenried.  Let me know at once whether Tanner was willing to go or not.”

“I’ll let your excellency know immediately.”

Egon hurried to his own quarters, where he ordered his horse to be saddled.  In five minutes he was off for Chapel mountain.

Chapel mountain, which the German troops had so christened from the little church which stood on its summit, was one of a subordinate range of hills, which traversed the country in the region where the army corps of the South were quartered.  The little church lay desolate and lonely, half buried in the deep snow.  Priest and sacristan were gone long since, and the house of God bore traces of demolition, for a deadly battle had been fought on this height.  The walls were standing and part of the pointed roof; the rest had been carried away by shot and shell, and the wind whistled through the shattered windows.  Ice and snow covered the surrounding wood, and a faint half-moon lit up the whole with a ghastly, uncertain light.

It was a bitter cold night, like that memorable one at Rodeck.  A deep red flame lit up the horizon, but it was no northern light this time, no purple glow to lessen the gloom, it was the signal of war, the deep, blood-red flash such as went up from every village and hamlet in Germany, rousing men to action, waving them on to battle and—­to death!

A single guard stood at one of the lonely outposts—­Hartmut von Falkenried.  His eyes were fixed on distant watch fires which from time to time sent up their showers of sparks to heaven.  In the distance, warmth and light, here, ice and night.  The cold which had been intense all day strengthened with the night, and seemed to freeze out all life from the solitary watch on duty.  True there were other sentinels, at various posts, but they were not accustomed to winters in the Orient or in Sicily.  Hartmut had spent no winters in the north since his boyhood’s days, and the cold seemed to freeze the very blood in his veins.

A deadly languor came over him, which was not the forerunner of sleep; it crept into the limbs and closed the heavy eyelids.  He fought it off bravely, but it would return again and again as the icy air grew colder.  He knew what it meant and struggled bravely against it.  Surely he would not freeze to death.

His glance turned, as if seeking strength, to the little half-ruined house of God.  What were church and altar to him?  He had cast all belief from him long ago.  Death was an eternal night, and life alone could give him all he wished, full expiation of his early fault, the woman he loved, the poet’s crown, his father’s blessing!  But here he stood at his post waiting an inglorious death, which he felt would meet him ere the night was over.  He would not swerve from duty, death might seek him and find him—­on guard.