J56 THE YOUNG WIDOW OF BliEMEN. 



for old Ludwig Brauer craved leave to examine another who had just 

 arrived in Bremen. As soon as young Von Korper looked on this 

 stranger, he half shouted aloud, and then turned his head away. The 

 witness said his name was Ernest Hortsberg, son of the minister of a 

 Lutheran church in Hamburg. He deposed that he was a fellow- 

 student, intimate with young Hermann in Jena ; that he had heard the 

 prisoner, on receiving certain letters from Bremen, break out into the 

 most violent and frightful imprecations against Adolphe Brauer, vowing 

 to take his life. 



Hermann prayed leave to ask this witness some few questions, when 

 it appeared that they had been rivals for the affections of Sophia Meyer, 

 daughter of the Greek professor at Jena, and that Hermann was the 

 favoured lover ; further, that they had fought two separate duels on this 

 quarrel, in both of which young Hortsberg had been worsted Though 

 these discoveries threw some suspicion over the evidence, yet they 

 seemed important enough to demand a second investigation, by putting 

 " the question" that is to say, by torture. 



Who could paint the looks of young Hermann when this decision was 

 announced, and he was once more asked " what become of Adolphe 

 Brauer ?" In a voice that went to my very heart, he called Heaven to 

 witness that if he were torn alive joint from joint, he could not tell 

 more than he had already revealed. They made ready again to tie him 

 to the dreadful bed; but when they touched his swoln dislocated wrists, 

 he fairly shrieked aloud, and earnestly called on God for the mercy 

 which man denied. He was bound in the rack ; and I had covered my 

 eyes, and was prepared to rush out, for I could bear to see no more, 

 when he called out wildly, that " if they would but untie him, and 

 bring him water, he would confess all." I was thunderstruck on hearing 

 these words, and stood fixed to the spot, looking on him in wonder. 

 He spoke hurriedly and confusedly, and told some tale of his having 

 had a quarrel with Brauer for supplanting his friend, old Muller. He 

 said he made some pretext on that fatal morning for their going out 

 early, to give him an opportunity to commit the murder; that a true 

 account had been given by Peter Snick, soon after whose departure he 

 struck Brauer heavily with a bludgeon, and killed him ; that a pedlar 

 happening to pass with a pack-horse, he bribed him to take away the 

 body 3 and that he had never seen the man again, and did not know how 

 he disposed of it ; but finding the steward's hat left in the hurry by the 

 pedlar, where it had fallen in the scuffle, he hid it amongst the weeds, 

 just as the old man found it. Having signed this confession, he was 

 taken back to prison. 



For some time after he was gone I stood as one stupified; my ears 

 tingled as if I had been hearing the dizzy sounds of a dream, or of de- 

 lirium. Was young Hermann, then, really a murderer? Impossible! 

 I had known him from a child ! But his own confession ! I resolved 

 instantly to see him in prison ; and though all approach of his friends 

 was denied to him, by a heavy bribe, I obtained that very morning 

 admission to his cell. 



When I approached the stone on which he lay heavily manacled, and 

 looked on his sickly emaciated features, I could feel only pity for him, 

 and should have stretched out my hand to him had he been guilty of a 

 hundred murders ; but he shrank from me, and hid his face. " You 

 are kind/' said he faintly ; " but I cannot bear to see you I am not 



