Old General Mosel, Commandant of Wesel, sprang between them, "Sire, cut me to death, but spare your Son!" and the sword was got back to its scabbard; and the Prince lodged in a separate room, two sentries with fixed bayonets keeping watch over him.

Friedrich Wilhelm did not see his face again for twelve months to come,--"twelve months and three days." Military gentlemen of due grimness interrogated the Prince next evening, [Seckendorf (in Forster, iii.

5).] from a Paper drawn up by his Majesty in the interim.

Prince confesses little: Did design to get across the Rhine to Landau; thence to Strasburg, Paris, in the strictest incognito; intended to volunteer there, thought he might take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize himself in the Italian War (just expected to break out), which might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not tell clearly where his money came from; shy extremely of elucidating Katte and Keith;--in fact, as we perceive, struggles against mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth.

"Let him lie in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have appointed for the like of him!" Divine Laws, are they not?
Well, yes, your Majesty, divine and human;--or are there perhaps no laws but the human sort, completely explicit in this case?
"He is my Colonel at least," thinks Friedrich Wilhelm, "and tried to desert and make others desert.