CHAPTER XVII.

"STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE."

The chill and rainy afternoon gave way to an evening as rainy and more chill. The carriage rolled southward, past St. Ouen, and still on. Those inside spoke not a word. The men on the coachman's seat protected themselves from the rain with their cloaks as best they could, and uttered no complaint. Dick could see nothing through the carriage window, against the dark sky, but the darker forms of trees and buildings gliding by. He had too much else on his mind to appreciate the fact that he was at last about to enter Paris, the goal of his dream-journeys in childhood. At first he was in a kind of stupor, and felt like one hurled through increasing darkness towards blackest night, there to meet annihilation. Then his mind began to work, and soon was in a whirl. Assassination,—he shrank from it with disgust and horror. The alternative, death,—he recoiled from the idea, as youth and hope ever must recoil. Was there no middle course? He racked his brain to find one; he found it not, yet still he racked his brain.

It was quite dark now, and they had passed the outer barrier without Dick's noting the fact. But the houses, now close together and of different character from those of the village of La Chapelle, indicated that the carriage must be in the faubourg, at least. Presently Dick perceived that they were passing beneath a great arch (it was the Porte St. Denis, erected under Louis XIV., though Dick knew it not); then that they turned to the right, and, a minute later, obliquely to the left, finally proceeding along a slightly narrower street than they had already traversed. A movement on the part of the man at his right seemed to indicate that the destination was near at hand. They were indeed in the Rue Clery, and approaching the Rue du Petit Carreau, although the dark streets were nameless to Dick. Suddenly he had an idea. He gave a start, as if he had awakened from a feverish sleep.

"Messieurs," he said, in a half terrified tone, "I have had a remarkable dream, a wonderfully vivid one, though I have not for a moment lost sense of my being with you in this carriage."

"It is the time for acts now, not for dreams," said the leader of the Brotherhood.

"But this dream concerns the act," said Dick, in an awe-stricken manner. "It was rather a vision than a dream. I felt, and feel now, as if it were a message from above."

"Let us hear it, then," said the leader.

"I dreamt all had been carried out as planned, up to the moment of my striking the blow. And then the man caught the sword entering his body, and broke it in two, though the hilt was still in my hand. He drew the point from his side, and stood, very little wounded, before me, while I looked around in vain for another weapon."

"A message from God, perhaps," said the leader, "to put you on your guard against such an outcome."

"But, monsieur, I had this dream a second time, and then a third, and it was always precisely the same."

"It warns you to make the first thrust sure and deep, and to give him no opportunity of grasping your sword."

"I think, rather, it warns me to provide myself with a second sword. My keenest impression in the dream was of chagrin at finding myself without a second weapon after the first had become useless."

"You are doubtless right," said the leader. "One to whom a revelation is given is the best judge of its meaning. Buckle on one of these swords, in addition to the one you have."

Dick did as he was bid. A moment later the carriage stopped, close to the wall of a house at the left side of the street,—for Paris had not footways then, as London had, and coaches went as near the walls as their drivers pleased to take them.

One of Dick's guards got out, Dick followed, the leader came last. Dick could see that these two grasped their pistols beneath their cloaks. He was before a large and imposing house with a rounded façade. Lights shone through some of the windows. His two guards led him to the door, and one of them knocked. The time seemed incredibly long till the servant came.

"Monsieur Victor Mayet, clerk in the General Control Office, begs an immediate interview with Monsieur Necker, regarding a matter of the utmost importance," said Dick, with a steadiness that surprised himself. The servant went away. Another, and seemingly longer, interval ensued. At last the servant came back and told Dick to follow.

Dick stepped forward, and his two guards returned to the coach. The servant showed the way up a staircase with a handsome balustrade, and thence through one of the doors that opened from the corridor, to a rich and elegant apartment, its ceiling painted with mythological pictures, its walls decorated with arabesques and medallions. At a magnificently carved and ornamented desk at the farther end of the room, sat a gentleman of striking appearance, slender and noble-looking, but haughty and stiff. The splendid armchair in which he sat was turned sidewise towards the desk, so that the gentleman, who leaned upon one elbow, faced Dick as the latter entered. Dick stood at a distance, and bowed low, the distance being warranted by the singularly cold look of the gentleman in the chair. It served, in the soft candle-light, to keep Dick's features vague.

Dick cast a look at the servant, whereupon the gentleman motioned the latter from the room. Then, his coat still clutched tight over his swords, Dick said:

"Is it Monsieur Necker I have the honor of addressing?"

"If you are a clerk in the General Control Office you must know that it is," said the gentleman, in a dry tone.

"But I am not a clerk in the General Control Office," said Dick, quietly. "I am, through a strange accident, the chosen instrument of a secret society whose object is to kill you. Don't think I am a madman. What I say is perfectly true. I have taken an oath that requires me to make an attempt upon your life. But that obligation, through lack of foresight, does not forbid my giving you means of defending yourself; therefore," and here Dick opened wide his coat, and held forth a sword, "I offer you one of these swords, and beg you to stand on guard. Don't call for help. If you do that, I must savemyself by having at you immediately. Take the sword, I advise you, for I certainly intend to attack you."

Monsieur Necker had risen, and he stood looking at Dick in the most profound astonishment.

"Why do you keep us waiting, papa?" came a voice from a suddenly opened doorway, and a moment later a slender figure followed the voice into the room. "Oh, you have a visitor! Mon Dieu, Silvius!"

"Mon Dieu, Amaryllis!" Dick's lips went through the motions of these words, but what he uttered were rather the shadows or ghosts of words than words themselves. He continued unconsciously to hold out the sword towards her father, while gazing at her.

"What does it mean, papa?" she asked, in a hushed voice that betokened vague alarm. "Silvius, what are you doing with those swords?"

Dick's wits returned. "Cannot you see, mademoiselle? I have been chosen by a certain society to make your father a present of them, in token of the society's feelings towards him." Whereupon Dick, to show Necker that everything had been changed by the revelation that he was Germaine's father, moved courteously to the desk, laid both swords thereon, and stepped back.

"Leave us alone, my child," said Necker, gently; "and beg your mother to grant me another half-hour."

"Very well," said the girl, and then, still somewhat puzzled, but with a parting smile for both Dick and her father, she disappeared through the doorway.

"And now you will be good enough to explain this scene?" said Necker, in a tone of authority, having put himself between the swords and Dick.

"All that I said, before the arrival of mademoiselle, was perfectly true," replied Dick. "But now that I find you are her father, what I proposed is impossible."

"It is strange you should have known my daughter and not known who her father was."

"I made her acquaintance at some children's games, and without learning her name."

"That a youth who amuses himself at children's games should amuse himself also by belonging to an assassination society, is a novel idea, to say the least."

"It is a very strange story, monsieur. But if you will take the trouble to look out into the street, you will see a carriage waiting; with it are four men who must be already impatient for my return to them. When I do return, if I tell them you are alive, they will kill me. If I tell them you are dead, they will guard me closely while they await confirmation through the public news. When they find that I lied, they will kill me."

"It begins to appear as if these men ought to be arrested," said Necker, ringing a bell. He then sat down at the desk and wrote a note, Dick standing all the while at a respectful distance. A servant entered, and, in response to a slight gesture from Necker, went close to the latter, and received some low-spoken instructions, of which Dick caught only the word "police." The servant then took the note, and hastened from the room. Throughout this time, Necker had kept an oblique glance on Dick.

Now that he had not only saved Germaine's father on the present occasion but had also given him warning against future attempts, Dick had no mind to betray the Brotherhood further. He saw himself between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand was the danger of his being called upon to figure as a witness against men who had spared his own life, and of being mistaken by the world as a common informer. On the other hand was the probability of his being sought and punished with death by the Brotherhood, for, though four of its members might be arrested, there remained a dozen others as resolute, to hunt him down wherever he should take refuge.

Monsieur Necker began to question him, but he refused to disclose the slightest additional fact regarding the society. "It is enough," said Dick, "that its purpose is defeated through your being now on your guard for the future." He gave his name, though, with his St. Denis abode, and Necker made a note of them.

From the street below came the sound of a pistol-shot, and then of a carriage rattling off over the stones. Necker flung open a window, and saw the carriage fleeing in one direction, his own servant in another. As Dick guessed, his guards had divined the errand of the servant leaving the house by a side door, and had sought their own safety, after having vainly tried to stop the messenger with a shot. It was a relief to Dick to know that the four were thus out of danger of arrest.

Seeing the present futility of questions, Necker took up the matter of Dick's own future safety from the Brotherhood. The two were in the midst of this discussion, when the tramp of several men was heard on the staircase, then in the corridor. Necker's face took on a peculiar light as the door opened and in came a uniformed official, followed by a squad of armed men and conducted by the servant who had been sent with the note.

"A moment, monsieur," said Necker to the officer, whereupon the newcomers all bowed and stood still. Necker proceeded to fill in the blank spaces of a document he had meanwhile taken from a drawer in his desk, and to which a signature and seal were already affixed. He then held this out to the officer, who advanced to take it.

"You will send four of your men immediately as this gentleman's escort, to the place mentioned in that order," said Necker, speaking to the officer, but motioning towards Dick. "As for you and the rest of your force, remain here,—I shall have work for you."

While the officer, having read the written order, gave it with some whispered directions to one of his men, Necker addressed Dick thus:

"Young gentleman, you will not have to fear any present danger from this well-disposed society of which you have spoken. The place to which you are about to be conducted will be a safe refuge. I feel it is my duty to provide for your protection in this manner."

"I thank you, monsieur," said Dick, bowing.

The man who now held the written order, politely motioned Dick to go before him from the room. Preceded by two men, and followed by two, Dick went down the staircase and out to the rain-beaten street. There the party waited, while one of the men hastened off on some errand. He soon returned, sitting beside the driver, on a large carriage. The man in authority opened the carriage door, sent one comrade inside, then courteously begged Dick to enter, then followed in turn, and was finally joined by his remaining comrade. The man with the driver remained where he was. The man in command thrust his head out and shouted the destination to the driver, then closed the door. Dick gave a violent start.

"To the Bastile," was what the man had called out.

Why had Dick not thought of this possibility sooner?—he asked himself. There were two very obvious reasons, if not more, why Necker should wish to keep him caged. First, imprisonment might induce him to break his silence as to the Brotherhood's place of meeting and as to what names his eye had caught during the signing of his own to the list. Secondly, his disclosure, with every attendant circumstance, might be suspected of being a ruse to gain favor, similar to that by which Latude had brought well-nigh a lifetime of captivity upon himself; for men who devise such ruses are to be held as dangerous.

Yes, imprisonment was the logical conclusion of this incident. Dick shuddered as the word "Bastile" repeated itself in his ears. It had a far more formidable sound than that of Newgate, though, thank heaven, a far more gentlemanly one. And so Dick was now about to round out his prison experience, begun in America as a prisoner of war, and resumed in London as a civil prisoner, by being a prisoner of state in France! He sighed, and resigned himself to the inevitable. He looked not into the future. He might be out again in a day, or he might pine in his cage, purposely forgotten, the rest of his years. Well, well, no reason to be downcast! "Heart up, lad!" he said within himself, in the language of old Tom MacAlister; "wha kens the morrow's shift of the wind of circumstance?"

After a long ride through streets of frowning houses, the carriage approached an open "place" or square, at one side of which Dick could make out, through the window, a huge rectangular building whose uniform towers, bulging out at regular intervals from straight stone walls, darkened the sky above an outer wall that enclosed the whole edifice. That end of the building which fronted the square contained two of the towers. Towards this front the carriage drove, crossing a drawbridge, and stopping for the man in command to show his order to the guard officer.

Dick was then driven past the outer guard-house, crossed a second bridge, a court, and other enclosures, and finally arrived at a second guard-house, where he was put down and his name entered on the prison register. He was then given into the charge of a squad of men, and by these conducted to an interior paved court, to which an iron-grated gate opened, and which seemed like the bottom of a vast well. This was the inside of the rectangle bounded by the eight towers and their connecting walls.

By the light of lanterns, Dick was led through a door at the side, and thence, through corridors and up steep stairways, to a large cell. The lantern's light showed a bare stone-floored chamber, with a table, a stool, a small bed, an empty fireplace, and in the wall an aperture in whose depths, though it was designed to serve the purpose of a window, Dick's sight was lost before coming to the outer end. Before he had time to ask a question, his conductors had closed the door upon him, turned its heavy lock, and left him alone in the darkness.

He had been searched in the guard-house, but not required to put on other clothes. Pleased at this, and at his not having been shackled, he groped his way to the bed, undressed, and fell into a deep sleep. So ended the, to him, eventful day of Wednesday, March 12, 1777.

He was visited on Thursday by Monsieur Delaunay, the governor of the Bastile, and on Friday by the lieutenant of police, each accompanied to the cell door by soldiers. Each tried by questions, vague promises, and implied threats, to make him speak of the Brotherhood. Their attempts failing, the governor visited him a week later, thinking imprisonment might have had effect upon him. The governor spoke incidentally of the dungeons, nineteen feet below the level of the courtyard, and five feet below that of the ditch, their only opening being a narrow loophole to the latter. But Dick only smiled. A fortnight elapsed before the governor's next appearance, and still Dick was as silent on the one topic as ever. The hint as to the dungeon was not carried out. Perhaps the worthy governor received more money for the food of a prisoner in an upper cell than for that of a prisoner in a dungeon, and consequently could make more by underfeeding him. The governor now allowed a month to pass before renewing his persuasions; after that, two months; and then he came no more.

Meanwhile, Dick had little to complain of. In fact, many an honest and hard-working man of talent nowadays might envy such a life as the ordinary prisoner in the Bastile could lead, especially in the reign of Louis XVI. Such a prisoner's state, in those old days of tyranny and oppression, was heavenly, compared with that of an innocent man merely awaiting trial in the prison of a police court in New York City in this happy age of liberty and humanity.

Dick was allowed to walk, under guard, not only in the interior court, but also in a small garden on one of the bastions, where the pure air was sweetened by the perfume of flowers. He was permitted to have books, some of which were lent him by the governor, the royal intendant, the surgeon, and other officers, and some of which were bought, at his request, out of money allowed for his food. Could he have afforded it out of his own purse, he might have hired a servant, furnished his room luxuriously, dressed in the height of fashion, eaten of the choicest delicacies, practised music and participated in concerts got up under the governor's patronage, kept birds or cats or dogs, and otherwise brought to himself the world to which he was forbidden from going. The comforts of the Bastile, however, were at that time accessible to only about half a dozen prisoners besides Dick. In 1761 there had been only four. In 1789, when the Bastile was destroyed, there were only seven.

But Dick, who lived in an age when young men of talent did not set upon leisure the value they give it in this overworking period, pined for the open. He began to grudge the time lost in captivity, and the fear grew on him that he was doomed indeed to forgetfulness. Summer came and went. The flowers in the elevated garden withered. Autumn winds howled around the towers, and winter snow was lodged on the lofty platforms. The beginning of December brought Dick, through the lieutenant of the Bastile garrison, the news that in America the British had taken Philadelphia, but that their Northern army, under Burgoyne, had surrendered at Saratoga, and that the glorious victory had been largely won by his own old commanders, Arnold and Morgan. Such tidings made Dick eager to be out in the world. At night he would fall asleep, gazing at the dying embers in his fireplace, and dream of broad fields, boundless stretches of varied country over which he could speed with bird-like swiftness, barely touching the ground with his feet. At last he resolved to uncage himself.

The aperture that served as his cell window was defended by iron bars an inch thick, so crossing one another that each open space was but two inches square. There were three such gratings. As Dick was high up in the tower, the outer end of this aperture was at a great distance from the earth. Dick turned from this opening in despair, put out his fire, stooped into the fireplace, and examined the interior of the chimney. It was not very far from the bottom to the top, but the way was guarded by several iron bars and spikes, securely fixed in hard cement. They had the look of being less difficult to unfasten than the bars in the window seemed. Dick resolved to attack the obstructions in the chimney.

There was no iron in his cell, his scanty furniture being joined by wooden pegs. The stone of his cell floor was so soft that the first piece of it he succeeded in detaching crumbled like plaster against the hard cement of the chimney. What was he to do for an instrument with which to scrape free the iron bars from the cement in which they were set? His lucky star sent him an inspiration in the shape of a toothache.

By patiently and painfully forcing aside his gum with a chip of fire-wood, and by strong exertions of thumb and forefinger, he succeeded in extracting the tooth after several hours' excruciating pain and labor. With the tooth itself he hollowed out of a fagot's end a place in which afterward to set its root, which he then fastened securely in this handle by means of extemporized wooden wedges. He thus had a scraper, so adjusted that he could apply his full strength in using it. This he hid in his bed.

He then unravelled underclothing, handkerchiefs, and cravat, and twisted the threads into a rope, to which he tied, at intervals of one foot, small wooden bars to serve as hand-holds and foot-rests. All this work was done at times when he was least likely to be visited by any official or attendant of the prison.

He tied a heavy fagot, six inches long, to the end of his rope, and by dint of much practice he finally managed to throw this end up the chimney and over one of the iron bars therein. He then swung his rope about until it was so entangled with the suspended fagot as to remain fast to the bar when he put his weight on it. Armed with his scraper, he then mounted by the rope to the iron bar, undid and lowered the rope's end that had the fagot, thus giving himself a double rope to cling to, and began work with the scraper on the cement that held one of the other bars than that over which the rope was thrown. Habit had taught him to see in the dimmest light, and his fingers to find their way in total darkness. To his joy he soon found that the hard enamel of his tooth had effect on the surface of the cement.

With what difficulty and pain he worked, supported by his fragile rope ladder, compelled to brace himself against the sides of the chimney, and often to find relief from his cramped position by hanging to the iron bar, is hardly to be imagined. When he desisted he had to descend by the double rope, then let go of one end and draw the rope by the other end over the bar, for the rope also had to be hidden in his bed when not in use.

When not working in the chimney, Dick made additional rope, for that purpose unravelling all of his clothing and bedding that would not be missed by any who might enter his cell. He continued to borrow books, and as he now asked for such as he was already acquainted with,—either French works that he knew through translation, or French versions of English works,—he could talk so well of their contents that the officers he occasionally met supposed him to pass all his time in reading. So apparent was his seeming contentment, that no one suspected him of desiring to escape. But that desire increased daily. It was only stimulated by the news, in February, that France had recognized the independence of his country and formed an alliance with it.

In less than eight months after setting to work, he had opened a way through the chimney. So slender was he, and so supple, that he found he had not to remove all the bars, for he could wriggle between some of them and the chimney wall. Those that he did unfasten he replaced loosely in position after each period of work. He now estimated that he had nearly two hundred feet of rope, and he had been told correctly that the towers of the Bastile were nearly two hundred feet high. By the first of August, 1778, all was ready; and Dick waited only for a dark and rainy night.

Such a night came on Wednesday, August 5th. Dick had walked in the court that afternoon, under a steady downpour of the kind that lasts twenty-four hours or more, and he felt assured of a black sky for the night. He attached his rope in the usual manner, ascended the chimney, removed the loosely replaced iron bars, one by one, climbed by the rope to the highest of the bars he had left fast, squeezed through between that bar and the chimney wall, attached the rope's end to his waist, and then laboriously worked his way up the rest of the chimney with arms and legs, rubbing the skin off elbows and knees in doing so. At last he emerged from the top of the chimney, and, after resting a minute, dropped on the flat roof of the tower.

For some time, the darkness and rain hid everything from Dick's sight. But at last, having meanwhile drawn the full length of rope after him from the chimney, he could make out vaguely the dark houses and streets stretching far away below. By sheer force of will, and by confining every thought and moment to his work, he kept himself from turning giddy at the height.

The lofty platform of the Bastile was surmounted by ordnance, even as in the days of the Fronde, when the "great Mademoiselle" had fired the guns on the soldiers of Turenne. Dick fastened his rope around one of these cannon, and threw the loose end over the battlement of a corner tower. He believed that the rope would reach down almost to the fosse, which separated the prison from the outer wall. This ditch was twenty-five feet deep, but was usually kept dry. Along the inside of the outer wall ran a wooden gallery, which was paced by sentinels and was reached from below by two flights of steps.

It was Dick's plan to drop from the rope's end to the fosse, slink up the steps under cover of darkness and rain, elude the sentinels, reach the top of the outer wall, and drop therefrom to the ground outside, trusting to his lightness and his luck to make this last fall an easy one. He had obtained his knowledge of his surroundings from a book of memoirs that he had read in his cell, written by a gentleman who had been imprisoned in the Bastile under the Regency.

He clambered over the battlement, took a good hold of his slender rope, or, rather, of one of the wooden rounds knotted to it, and let down his weight over the outer edge of the battlement, grasping at the same time the next lower round with his other hand. He had an instant of giddiness and weakness, at the discovery that the rope swung far out in the air, the wall being overhung by the battlements. He hardened his muscles and somewhat overcame this momentary feeling. But his arms trembled as he cautiously disengaged one hand and sought the next round below.

In this manner, swaying in the air, and feeling sometimes as if the tower were leaning over upon him, and at other times as if it were receding so as to leave him quite alone between earth and sky, he gradually made the descent. It began to seem as if the rope were endless, as if he were doomed forever to descend towards an earth that fell back from him as he approached. But at last his feet felt about for the rope below, in vain. His hands soon confirmed the discovery that he was at the rope's lower end, to which a stout piece of wood was attached. Yet he was still far from the fosse; indeed, he saw, with dismay, that he was a good distance above the level of the outer wall.

To drop from such a height would be suicide. To climb back to the top of the tower was impossible; his strength was almost gone.

Thanks to the darkness and to the noise of the rain, he had not been seen by the sentinels. It was a time for desperate expedients. He had noticed that, whenever the rope swung him close to the tower wall, it swung back to a corresponding distance outward. He now swung in, and, in rebounding, struck his feet against the tower in such manner as to propel him farther outward on the return swing. He next guided himself so as to swing clear of the rounded surface of the tower and yet so as to kick the tower in passing, and thus to gain additional space and force for his pendulum-like movement through the air. Continuing thus, and describing a greater arc at each swing, he found at last that his outward swing brought him almost directly above the outer wall. At the next swing, he let the rope go, with the hope of landing somewhere on the outer wall, which was so near that the fall would not be exceptionally dangerous.

Through the air he was hurled, far beyond the outer wall. He had miscalculated. For an instant he was aware of this, and gave himself up as a dead man. He knew that no human bones could withstand such a collision with solid earth as he was about to experience. He instinctively made himself ready for the shock. It came,—with a splash, an immersion, a gurgling, and a further descent through muddy water. He had dropped into the aqueduct of the Fosse St. Antoine.

The ten feet of water then in the aqueduct sufficiently broke his fall, and he rose to the surface in a state of amazement. As there was no demonstration from the wall over which he had swung, he inferred that the sound of the rain had drowned the splash of his contact with the water. He clambered up the bank, slunk along the outer wall of the Bastile, and emerged in the square before the Porte St. Antoine.

Westward lay the city proper, eastward the Faubourg St. Antoine, with highways leading to the open country. The first faint sign of dawn was appearing, so many hours had Dick been employed in his escape. The rain was still descending, and the water of the ditch was dripping from his clothes. He stood still for a moment, gazing at the dark roofs of Paris; then he turned his back upon them, and looked towards the two streets that opened before him. He chose that towards the right, and plunged into it. It led him southeastward.

By full dawn he had passed through some open fields to the country, for the great circular wall completed under Napoleon had not then been even authorized. Regaining the highway, he proceeded towards Charenton, making on this occasion more haste on the road from Paris than he had ever made on the road thereto.

He was moneyless, hatless, clad in outer garments only, his inner ones having gone to make rope. As the morning advanced, people on the road stared at him with curiosity. Near Charenton he stepped aside to let a post-carriage pass towards Paris. To his surprise, the occupant of the carriage, having observed him in passing, thrust a good-natured face out of the window, ordered the postilion to stop, and called to Dick:

"My friend, you look wet!"

"I am wet," replied Dick, who had not moved since the carriage had gone by.

"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" asked the gentleman in the carriage.

"The same question was on the tip of my tongue," said Dick. "But I have already answered it." And then he spoke in English. "Good morning, Lord George!"

"Why, damme if it isn't Wetheral!" Lord George Winston also spoke English now, and a very pleased and friendly expression came over his face.

"Yes, it is Wetheral, and in much the same condition as when he first had the honor of meeting you."

"Egad, so it seems! Come, then, let me play the Good Samaritan again!"

"I don't see how I can refuse you, my lord," said Dick, looking down at himself.

"Good! Wilkins, open the door for Mr. Wetheral."

"A moment, my lord. Where are you going?"

"To Paris, of course."

"Then I thank you, but I have important business in the opposite direction."

"Oh, come into the carriage! I shall not be in Paris long. I've come up from Fontainebleau, to engage a secretary. Then I am going to make a tour of France and Germany."

"Do you want a secretary? I am sure I should make a good secretary."

"Why, you are a gentleman."

"Do you want an hostler for a secretary, then?"

"Why, if you really wish it, the post is open to you."

"Then I accept it on the spot."

"Then I have no need to go to Paris. Get in, Mr. Secretary."

Dick obeyed with alacrity, Lord George ordered the postilion to turn around, and soon they were whirling through Charenton, on the road to Melun, Dick telling Lord George his story, and receiving the latter's unsolicited promise to back whatever assertions might become necessary to show that his lordship's secretary was not the man who had escaped from the Bastile.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DICK GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN SHOOTING.

"Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfordshire and renewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,—that is to say, conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to show how I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this place I found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search of a secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabel is soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite of the lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revenges himself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her green with jealousy."

Dick sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives of the people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must have been by them forgotten. Such is the world!

The next few weeks, passed in leisurely travel from one old town of France to another, were among the most uneventful and serenely pleasurable in Dick's life. From the noble forest, great rocks, and historic château of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its winding streets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and were towed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks down on fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot of its hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company of merchants, lawyers, abbés, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women of different ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined in the quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectually disguised Lord George's rank and nationality.

At Auxerre they left the water-coach, and proceeded by a hired conveyance to Dijon, where they met several English, Irish, and Scotch gentry at the coffee-house, and were reminded of London by the garden called Vauxhall, hard by the ramparts. So they went through Burgundy, drinking the wine, exchanging civilities with the well-fed monks, and partaking everywhere of the fat of the land. By way of Auxonne, a town small but fortified, and Dole, with its Roman vestiges, they neared the Swiss frontier at Besançon, then noted for its university, its hospital, its large garrison containing among others the regiment of the King, its perpetual religious processions, its frequent suicides of lovers in the river Doube, and its soldiers' duels.

Thence they went to Basle, lodging at the inn of the Three Kings, and dining by a window that looked across the Rhine to smiling plains; thence past miles of tobacco fields to Strasbourg; thence across the Rhine and to Rastadt; thence by way of Carlsruhe and Speyer to Mannheim, whose straight streets, crossing at right angles, reminded Dick of Philadelphia. Over a flat country where there were few houses but palaces and peasants' cottages,—for in most small German states the gentry lived in the capitals and the merchant class in towns,—they went by carriage to the ecclesiastical capital, Mayence, which swarmed with priests, many of them rich and gay-looking, and not a few openly tipsy with Rhenish wine. From there Lord George and his secretary proceeded to Frankfort, notable for its stately houses covered with red stucco, its spacious streets, its well-dressed and well-mannered people, its multitude of Jews.

From the free imperial city they drove to Marburg, in the landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel, a hilly, well-wooded country, with many fertile valleys and fields. Its landgrave, Frederick II., was one of the richest and most powerful of all the German princes, and was then in close relations with England, which fact gave him a mild interest in Lord George's eyes; but there was to that fact a circumstance with a different interest for Dick Wetheral,—it was this Landgrave that sold his troops to England, and thousands of them were even now in America fighting against Dick's countrymen.

Pushing on from Marburg as rapidly as the bad roads and the stolid, smoking German postilion would let them go, the young gentlemen entered Cassel, then no longer a walled city, on a pleasant autumn evening, little foreseeing, as they drove in from the southwest and set foot before the hotel in the round platz near the Landgrave's palace, that in this capital a very remarkable drama was about to open in the life of Dick Wetheral.

The next morning Dick stayed in the hotel to write Lord George's journal up to date, while his lordship went out to visit the English resident. Before noon Lord George returned.

"Lay aside your pen, my dear fellow," he said to Dick. "We are to dine at the palace with their highnesses, the Landgrave and Landgravine. Make haste, you've barely time to change your clothes."

"But I am merely a secretary," objected Dick, who had no desire to enjoy the hospitality of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.

"So much the more reason why you should see the Landgrave's court, to write my description of it. Besides, no one will know you are my secretary as well as my friend."

"But no one is permitted to appear at German courts who isn't noble."

"That rule of etiquette is observed only towards the natives, not towards strangers, and particularly not towards Englishmen. Come, this is a gala-day, and we shall go to the masquerade to-night as well. I must have at least one court dinner and court ball in my journal of travels, to be in the fashion. To-morrow we shall leave Cassel, which doesn't interest me, and go by way of Magdeburg to Berlin."

Dick was glad to hear this last intention, for, unlike the Landgrave Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel, King Frederick I. of Prussia (who was also Duke of Magdeburg) had shown some favor to the American cause, having some months ago forbidden the passage of Hessian soldiers through his dominions to embark for America. So Dick complied the more cheerfully with Lord George's wish.

Cassel then, as now, was mainly on the west bank of the river Fulda, and consisted of the "old town," large and irregular, and the "new town," where the nobility and the court officers had fine houses. The circular platz in which the travellers lodged was at the southwestern extremity of the old town, and by proceeding a short way southwest from the platz, one reached the winter palace and the new town. A few steps of their carriage horses brought Lord George and Dick to the palace, then a large Gothic castle, west of which was the great rectangular open space now known as the Friedrichsplatz. South of this space, and between the new town and the Fulda, was a flat-roofed villa, used by the Landgrave as a summer residence, and surrounded by parks, gardens, an orangery, and a menagerie. But though September was not yet past, the Landgrave was now occupying the winter palace.

The guard officer at the palace, to whom Lord George showed his order for entrance, caused a footman to conduct the visitors into a large decorated room, where a number of officers stood about in groups, talking in low tones. One of these, whom Lord George had met in the forenoon, greeted the two with the utmost courtesy, which seemed like a compound of French politeness and English gravity. Dick observed that this officer spoke in French, which indeed was so much the court language in Germany while Frederick of Prussia set the fashion, that the use of German was deemed a mark of vulgarity. In France the craze was for everything English; in Germany for everything French.

From the number of military officers present, it was evident that the Landgrave had not sent all of his army to serve England in America. Dick made several acquaintances in a very few minutes. He who had first approached was Count von Romberg, a captain in the foot-guards. Another was the Baron von Sungen, lieutenant-colonel of the horse-guards, a witty, spirited, impulsive, chivalrous man, with a French manner acquired in Paris. A third—slim, talkative, vain, meddlesome, with brazen gray eyes and reddish eye-lashes—was Count Mesmer, one of his highness's chamberlains. These three were young men. Of the older ones in the assemblage, Dick noticed particularly a bent, wrinkled, crafty-looking sexagenarian, who, he learned, was Von Rothenstein, minister of police.

Presently doors were thrown open, and there appeared a robust gentleman of medium height, looking fewer years than his fifty-eight, and wearing the Order of the Garter. He came with a firm tread, noticing in a brief but gracious way the officers, who bowed low to him as he approached. He had a moment and a word for this one and for that; for General Scliven, his chief reliance in military affairs; for old Zastrow, who had commanded at Schweidnitz; for the Prince of Saxe-Gotha, who had a regiment in Hesse-Cassel's service; and, in due time, for the officious Count Mesmer, by whom Lord George and Dick had the honor of being made known to the Landgrave.

His highness expressed, in the French language and in a guttural voice still full of virility, the pleasure he took in meeting Englishmen. While Lord George was bowing indifferently, and Dick hypocritically, other doors opened, and a lady entered, very beautiful and dignified, large, and somewhat over-plump. Dick knew from the great respect with which she was received, and from the number of ladies that followed her, that she must be the Landgravine. A very cold greeting passed between her and the Landgrave,—for, though it was but five years since Frederick II. had married, for love, the Princess of Brandenburg-Schwedt, he already lived estranged from her, as he had lived from his first wife, a daughter of England's George II.; and as he now lived also from his son George William, the hereditary prince, who was also Count of Hanau, and maintained there a little court.

Dick glanced from the Landgravine to her ladies, who looked neither as piquant as French women, nor as reserved as English women. If what an ungallant American traveller wrote at that time—that at the German courts beauty and butter alike were measured by the pound—were true, it was to be granted that the German ladies had fair skin, radiant complexion, and something of a classic cast of countenance. But Dick's gaze fastened upon one face, which had beauty without heaviness; a face that stood out from the others,—making them and all the world besides fade into nothingness, while Dick, in doubt whether he was not dreaming, forgot that any other woman had ever lived. It was the face of Catherine de St. Valier!

She saw him, looked slightly startled, then took on the faintest flush, which passed immediately but left him with the happy assurance that he was recognized. Half-way across the room as he was, he bowed low. She slightly inclined her head, and hastened to the Landgravine, for whom she had brought a forgotten handkerchief. She then went swiftly out by the door at which all the ladies had entered.

The company was already on the way to the dining-parlor, and Dick had to follow. It was the privilege of Lord George and his friends to dine at their highnesses' table, where only strangers and such officers as were not under the rank of colonel were allowed to sit, the lesser guests eating in an adjoining room, to which the doors were left open. But Dick took no thought of the honor done him, or of the table-talk, which was constrained and low-spoken, no voice being raised save when one of their highnesses addressed some person at a distance. Catherine was not present. Dick continued to wonder how in the world she had come to be an inmate of the palace of Cassel. As the dinner lasted two hours, he had time in which to repeat this question to himself many times. After dinner he absent-mindedly followed the company back to the room where it had first assembled. Here he stood in a trance for a quarter of an hour, and then, the Landgrave having left the apartment, the company broke up.

"Let us hope we sha'n't be so bored at the masquerade to-night," said Lord George, on the way back to the hotel. "I shall thank God when I have put this stupid place far behind me."

"Stupid!" echoed Dick. "I find it very interesting. I sha'n't think of leaving for some time."

"Why, this morning you were glad we were going at once to Berlin!"

"My dear Lord George, if you are determined to go at once to Berlin, I beg to resign my place as your secretary. I will do my best to find you another secretary here at Cassel."

"Why, I suppose I can easily find one. But are you serious? One would suppose you had got some fat appointment in the court or the army, since this morning."

"I wish I had, God knows,—or even a lean one,—but not in the army. I would not go to fight against my—against the Americans."

"Oh, you wouldn't be sent to America. We should have to get you into one of the household battalions,—not as an officer, of course; you know the officers must be of the nobility, but there are gentlemen in the ranks of every military body that is attached to a sovereign's person. There are the body-guards, the foot-guards, the horse-guards, and other such troops. Doubtless volunteers are very welcome. These German princes have crimps all over Europe kidnapping men for their armies. Let us speak to one of the various counts or barons we shall meet to-night."

"No, my lord, I would never serve this Landgrave as a soldier,—nor in any other post, but for one reason."

His lordship, though puzzled, was too polite to ask what the reason was. "Very well," said he, after a moment's silence, "we shall see to-morrow. I shall try to lure away some under-clerk from a brilliant official career, as my secretary, and to get you in his place,—if you continue of the same mind."

"My lord, you are destined to be always my Good Samaritan," cried Dick, his eyes suddenly moist with gratitude. He considered that, in occupying a civil sinecure under the Landgrave, he would not in reality be serving that virtual enemy to his country, but would be merely supporting himself by means of that enemy; that is to say, he would be, in time of necessity, existing at the expense of the foe, according to the custom of war. Moreover, his position might enable him to serve his country directly, by giving him early intelligence of future movements by Hessian troops, and, perhaps, of future intentions of England.

They drove to a costumer's, obtained dominoes, and, at six o'clock, returned to the palace, where they found the gentlemen of the court all in dominoes, the ladies in ordinary ball dress. Card tables had been set, and the Landgrave played at cavaniolle with a rather talkative party of about a dozen members, while the Landgravine took a hand at quadrille with a trio of her own choosing. A number of players occupied tables in adjoining rooms. Dick helped make up a game at which Captain von Romberg and two placid, apple-cheeked baronesses were the other participants, but his eyes roved from his cards, in vain search of Catherine.

While the games were going on, a gentleman passed around with a hat containing small tickets. Each lady took one of these, when the hat was offered her, and then similar tickets were drawn by the gentlemen. Dick saw that his ticket bore the number twenty-three, and he learned from the talk of his fellow players that the lady who had drawn the same number would be his partner at supper and at the dance. Presently an officer began calling out the numbers, a lady declaring herself at each number, and a gentleman offering his arm to lead her out to supper.

"I wonder who has twenty-three," said Dick, indifferently, to Lord George, who had meanwhile rejoined him.

"I can't tell you that," replied his lordship, "but I know who has my number, seventeen. I happened to see her ticket, when she held it up to the light. She is that splendid, dark-eyed creature, standing yonder under the candles."

Dick's glance turned idly towards the indicated place. Suddenly he became afire.

"My lord," he almost gasped, "be my Good Samaritan once again. Exchange tickets with me, for heaven's sake!"

"Why, certainly. That gives me back the uncertainty to which this game entitles me." And the exchange was quickly made.

"Seventeen," was called out, and Dick advanced, with beating heart, to meet Catherine. She colored again—was it with pleasure?—as she took his proffered arm. They walked in silence to the supper-room.

At supper there was more ease and animation than there had been at dinner. This circumstance favored conversation between Dick and his partner.

"I should not have expected to meet you so far from where I saw you last," he began, in a low voice.

"Nor I to meet you," she replied, speaking without haste, and with the gravity that characterized her.

"Oh, my coming here was a very simple matter. Sent to England as a prisoner, I escaped to France, and there fell in with an English nobleman, whose travels brought him this way. I am his secretary. It is not known I am an American."

"My coming here was quite as simple," said she, with a slight smile. " My brother and I came to France to receive a small bequest left by a cousin of my mother's. In Paris we met a distant relation,—one of the ladies of her highness the Landgravine. When she returned to Cassel, she obtained for me a post as lady-in-waiting. French people are in request at the German courts."

"And Monsieur Gerard?"

"My brother is in the foot-guards."

"I should like to see him," said Dick, and added, with special intention, "I suppose he has forgotten me."

"Oh, no, monsieur," she replied, quite artlessly; "we have often talked of you. Our gratitude for recovering the portrait, and risking your life to bring it to us—"

"'Twas the opportunity of risking it to serve you, that made my life worth having," he said, in a tone little above a whisper.

"My brother will be glad to learn that your life was surely saved," she replied, avoiding Dick's glance.

"And you, who saved it?"

"I, too, of course."

The words were nothing, but the slight blush with which she uttered them was eloquent.

After supper, all the company put on masks with which they had provided themselves. The Landgravine was led to the ballroom by her partner, an owlish colonel, and the other couples followed. Her highness stopped at the upper end of the room, the second couple stopped immediately below this, and at last there was a double file extending the length of the hall. This arrangement seemed to promise a country-dance, but when the music began, Dick found that a form of minuet was intended. When this had been walked through, everybody sat down, except the Landgravine, who then danced with several different gentlemen in succession.

After this there were minuets and country-dances. The company was augmented by maskers from the town, some in fancy dresses; while several who belonged to the court, having meanwhile slipped out, returned in different costume, so as to be really disguised,—for on first entering the masquerade-room, all were known, notwithstanding their masks. Everybody was now on a footing, and the maskers mingled promiscuously. But Dick remained with Catherine, who showed no desire for other company. He thought himself in the midst of paradise, until suddenly she said:

"Her highness is retiring. I must go."

"But, mademoiselle, the others are not going!"

"The others are not keepers of her highness's robes," said Catherine.

"But one moment! When may I see you again?"

"How can I say? My hours of duty are long. I am usually free in the afternoon, from three to five o'clock. On occasions like this, sometimes I attend her highness, sometimes I may do as I please."

"From three to five, you say. I suppose you remain in the palace then?"

"Except when I visit my brother. I must go now, monsieur. Au revoir!"

In a moment she was lost in the crowd. You may be sure much had been said, between their opening colloquy at supper and their brief dialogue at parting, to bring about the tacit understanding of a future meeting.

So she was in the habit of going to see her brother! Dick had learned that the Prussian system was followed in Cassel,—that the troops, instead of being lodged in barracks, were quartered with citizens. He walked the next morning to the drill-ground and armory of the foot-guards, and, happily meeting Captain von Romberg, learned where Gerard had lodgings. He went immediately to the house, which was in a street running east from the platz and through the southern extremity of the old town. It was the house of a glover, whose shop was on the ground floor. Gerard was out on duty.

Dick, finding that the guardsman occupied the first-floor room towards the street, immediately hired a corresponding room in an obscure inn across the way. He waited at the inn door till he saw Gerard, in military coat and buff cross belt, coming down the street; he then crossed over, with a preoccupied air, as if going about his business. Looking up suddenly, as he came face to face with the soldier, Dick pretended the greatest surprise at recognizing Monsieur de St. Valier.

The recognition was not mutual at first, but, as soon as Dick had recalled himself to the other, the young Frenchman became instantly cordial. A minute later the two were sitting in Gerard's room, expressing wonder at the strange chance that had made Dick a lodger across the street from Gerard.

They dined together at the table d'hôte of Dick's inn, and then returned to Gerard's house, where the marvellous coincidence had to be discussed over again when Gerard's sister called in the afternoon. It was his custom to receive her in the glover's back parlor, and on this occasion Dick was of course invited to be present. Not until she had gone back to the palace, did Dick return to Lord George, who had been mystified at his absence.

"I have found a secretary," said his lordship, who also had passed a great part of the day out of the hotel, "in the shape of a clerk at the French resident's office, who has got into trouble over cards and a woman and has to seek other pastures. But the vacancy he will leave is already provided for. I don't know what can be done for you if you are determined to remain here."

"I shall find something," said Dick; "and, meanwhile, I've taken a room at a cheaper hotel, where I can live for some time on the money I have. But I am as grateful to you—"

"As if I had ever really done anything for you," broke in Lord George, who liked expressions of gratitude to be cut short. He supposed that Dick's "some time" meant several weeks, whereas it really meant three days.

The next afternoon there was a review of the first battalion of guards, in that part of the park which lay between the summer palace and the menagerie. Lord George remained at Cassel on the pretext of a desire to see an exhibition of target-shooting that was to be given in connection with the review, by certain of the guardsmen. Dick guessed that his lordship's real purpose in tarrying was to make further effort towards obtaining employment for him.

The two met at Lord George's hotel (Dick having already moved to the inn opposite the glover's), and rode on hired horses to the reviewing-ground. It was a fine day, warm and sunny. The Landgrave and his chief officers were present on horseback. The Landgravine and several ladies were in carriages, at that side of the park which bordered on the Fulda and at which was the menagerie. Dick and Lord George took station, with several other horsemen, near the Landgrave's party. When the shooting at mark began, Dick found himself near the place where the men stood while firing. The competitors were drawn up in line, at right angles with the line formed by the rest of the battalion. This latter line formed the western side of an imaginary square, the targets were midway in the south side of the same square, the east side was formed by the menagerie and the carriages, while the north side began with the line of marksmen, and was continued eastward by the groups of horsemen. After a few shots had been fired, Dick observed that the Landgravine and other ladies had got out of their carriages and were standing at some distance from them, so as to see better the effect of each shot.

Some one had just called Dick's attention to the fact that Mlle. F——, the Landgrave's Parisian mistress, was standing within a few feet of the Landgrave's wife, when suddenly a terrible roar came from the menagerie, followed a moment later by a great four-footed, striped figure, which bounded into sight, then crouched and looked around with ferocious curiosity.

"The tiger has broken out!" an officer exclaimed, while everybody gazed at the animal as if struck dumb with sudden amazement and alarm.

A man rushed wildly out from the menagerie after the tiger,—he was the keeper, through whose carelessness the beast had escaped. At this sight the women began to scream and to run back to the carriages. In a moment or two, the Landgravine was left alone. She stood looking at the animal as if fascinated, or as if paralyzed with terror.

The keeper threw himself before the tiger. It felled him with a blow, drew the blood from his face with its claws, and began to tear his flesh with its teeth. The women shrieked with horror. The animal looked up, glided across the body of the man, and made swiftly towards the Landgravine.

A kind of shuddering moan went up from the whole field. Some officers dashed forward on their horses, as if to intervene between the Landgravine and the beast, though the great distance made the attempt a hopeless one.

As the tiger made its spring, a shot rang out. The beast gave a howl of pain, dropped sidewise, and lay still, at the Landgravine's feet, pierced through the brain.

The officers looked around amazed, and saw Dick Wetheral, afoot, lowering a smoking gun. He had slid from his horse at the tiger's first appearance, run to the nearest marksman, seized the loaded weapon, and fired as he had fired at many a running bear in Pennsylvania.

"Who fired?" cried the Landgrave, too deeply moved to say more,—for a prince does not wish his wife to die a violent death in his presence and the court's, however estranged he may be from her.

"I took the liberty, your highness," said Dick, handing back the gun to the guardsman, and approaching the Landgrave.

"You have saved the Landgravine's life," said his highness. "I lack words in which to express my gratitude. You shall hear from me."

And the Landgrave rode quickly over to the Landgravine, who was being supported to her carriage.

"You don't need a Good Samaritan any longer. Your fortune is made!" said Lord George, as Dick remounted.