Thereupon they both fell on my neck and kissed me, and knew not for very joy what they did; then they would give me an acknowledgment and therein assure me I should be the old Herzbruder’s co-heir together with his son, or that, if God should help them to their own again, they would return me the same with interest and with great thanks: of all which I would have nothing, but only commended myself to their perpetual friendship. After that, young Herzbruder would have sworn to be revenged on Oliver or to die. But his father forbade it, and prophesied that he that should slay Oliver would meet his end at the hands of me, Simplicissimus. “Yet,” said he, “I am well assured that ye two will never slay each other; for neither of you shall perish in fight.” Thereafter he pressed upon us that we should swear on oath to love one another till death and stand by each other in all straits.
But young Herzbruder bought his freedom for thirty-six thalers (for which his captain gave him an honourable discharge), and betook himself with the rest of the money, a good opportunity offering, to Hamburg, and there equipped himself with two horses and enlisted in the Swedish army as a volunteer trooper, commending his father to me in the meanwhile.
XXIV
How Two Prophecies Were Fulfilled at Once
Now none of my colonel’s people showed himself better fitted to wait on old Herzbruder in his sickness than I: and inasmuch as the sick man was also more than content with me, this office was entrusted to me by the colonel’s wife, who showed him much kindness; and by reason of good nursing, and being relieved in respect of his son, he grew better from day to day, so that before he was almost restored to full health. Yet would he stay in bed and give himself out to be sick till the said day, which he plainly dreaded, should be past. Meanwhile all manner of officers from both armies came to visit him, to know their future fortune, bad or good; for because he was a good calculator and caster of horoscopes, and besides that an excellent physiognomist and palmist, his prophecies seldom failed: yea, he named the very day on which the Battle of Wittstock afterwards befell, since many came to him to whom he foretold a violent death on that day.
My colonel’s wife he assured she would end her lying-in in the camp, for before her six weeks were ended Magdeburg would not be surrendered; and to the traitorous Oliver, who was ever troublesome with his visits, he foretold that he must die a violent death, and that I should avenge that death, happen it when it would, and slay his murderer: for which cause Oliver thereafter held me in high esteem. But to me myself he described the whole course of my life to come as particularly as if it were already ended and he had been by my side throughout; which at the time I esteemed but lightly, yet afterwards remembered many things which he had beforetime told me of, when they had already happened or had turned out true: but most of all did he warn me to beware of water, for he feared I might find my destruction therein.
When now came, he charged me, and also the orderly whom the colonel at his desire had appointed him for that day, most straitly, we should suffer no one to enter the tent: there he lay and prayed without ceasing: but as ’twas near to afternoon there came a lieutenant riding from the cavalry quarters and asking for the colonel’s master of the horse. So he was directed to us and forthwith by us denied entrance: yet would he not be denied, but begged the orderly (with promises intermixed) to admit him to see the master of the horse, as one with whom he must that very evening talk. When that availed not, he began to curse, to talk of blood and thunder, and to say he had many times ridden over to see the old man and had never found him: now that he had found him at home, should he not have the honour of speaking a
