Tales from the German, comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1844 Excerpt: ...whether it would not be possible with this intent to send to Dahme, and to delay the further transport of the horse-dealer until the slip, in some way or other, was secured. The chamberlain, who could not trust his senses, replied that in all probability the horse-dealer had unfortunately left Dahme already, and was already over the boundary and on Brandenburg soil, where every endeavour to impede his progress, or to turn him back, must lead to the most unpleasant and lengthened difficultiessuch difficulties, indeed, as it might be impossible to get over. When the elector, with a gesture of utter despair, threw himself back on his cushion in silence, the chamberlain asked him what it was that the slip contained, and by what strange and inexplicable chance he knew that the contents concerned him. Casting equivocal glances at the chamberlain, whose willingness to oblige him he doubted, the elector made no answer, but lay quite stiff, yet with heart uneasily beating, while his eyes were fixed on the corner of the handkerchief, which, immersed in thought, he held in his hands. All at once he ordered him to call into the chamber the hunting-page Jagd-junker) Von Stein, an active and sharp-witted young gentleman, whom he had often employed on secret affairs, on the pretext that he had business to settle with him of quite a different nature. After he had set forth the whole affair to this page, and had informed him of the importance of the slip, now in the possession of Kohlhaas, he asked him whether he was willing to earn an eternal claim to his friendship by getting this slip before Kohlhaas reached Berlin. The page as soon as he, in some degree, understood the affair, strange as it was, declared that all his powers were at the service of the elector, whereupon ...