148 THE RAVEN 



or in the adjoining park of Kingston Lacy, safe 

 under the protection of its owner, Mr Ralph 

 Bankes, who will, doubtless, be doubly anxious 

 to protect it now, when he is assured on the 

 authority of no less a person than Don Quixote 

 himself, that the violent death of a raven on his 

 estate may involve not only as it has long been 

 held, in the neighbourhood, to do a loss to his 

 family, but also a loss to the nation at large. 



The great German Emperor, Frederick Bar- 

 barossa, who was drowned while on the Third 

 Crusade, in a little river in Cilicia, was believed, 

 for centuries, by his subjects not to have died 

 at all, but, like King Arthur, only to have 

 ''passed," and to be sleeping in a cave in the 

 mountains, whence his red beard could occasionally 

 be seen flashing through the mist, waiting till it 

 should be time for him to awake and give unity to 

 distracted Germany. Prince Bismarck has done 

 his work for him ; and I do not suppose that his 

 sleep will, ever now, be disturbed. But one incident 

 of the legend must be recorded here. He wakes 

 from time to time, and asks sleepily "whether the 

 ravens are still flying round the mountain. " 

 The answer is, that they are still flying there ; and 

 the great Emperor sighs and goes to sleep again, 



