midst a white head rose, golden armour gleamed above the waves, and Barbarossa and his faithful steed slowly emerged from the waters. With noiseless hoof they wandered up and down the stream, and out from the depths mounted the troops of faithful ones who had followed their Emperor to danger and death. The drops gleamed like diamonds as they fell from head and armour with a gentle splash into the shining stream.

Silently the band of warriors rode along the waves; not a sound, not a footstep broke the stillness; thus they turned to the shore, and the horses clambered up the rocky bank. There Barbarossa and his silent warriors halted on the height. For a moment the Emperor's glance rested on the slumbering army, he held out his hand as if blessing them in a last farewell, then he shook the reins, and horse and rider, freed from the laws of earthly gravity, swept onwards to the beloved Fatherland.

They passed over the Bosphorus. Far below them gleamed the towers of Constantinople with the golden cross on their summits, but Barbarossa heeded them not. His head was bent forward, so that his white locks fluttered in the night wind, and his eyes were directed solely to the land towards which the horses moved with the swiftness of the storm-wind on their cloudy path. Soon German forests rustled beneath them, and round the Emperor's lips played something like the reflection of the old sunny smile.

To the south lay the Italian plains which had claimed the best years of his life and his youthful energy, but the Emperor turned his head from these. Perhaps he saw already the destiny of his proud race, which must someday be fulfilled in those fragrant fields. Now their native air surrounds them. The fir trees of the Black Forest scent the air, the waves of the Neckar gleam below them, and, bathed in the full moon's silvery splendor, there lies at their feet the Staufenburg, the cradle of the lofty imperial race.

Barbarossa raised his hand to bless its battlements and pinnacles, but still he held on his way northwards. The Spessart forests rustled beneath him in the darkness of the night, not a moonbeam pierced their thickly-leaved summits. But there gleamed the waters of the Kinzig, the walls of Gelashausen in its gently flowing stream, and over on the mountain's brow shone the aged Emperor's favorite castle, with the high oriel window, and Gela's deserted lattice. Barbarossa bent over his horse's neck, and cast a look of recognition on the scene of his early happiness.

Soon they hovered above the high-road, and then over the familiar forest with its 

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