The Galaxy, June 1877 Part 18

It was a bitter pill, but I swallowed it gracefully, and Herr Polizeidiener and I clicked gla.s.ses fraternally with protestations of mutual regard.

In the morning I was awakened by Jules, whose night's rest had done him a world of good. Bright, vivacious, and noisy, he bounded into my room.

"Oh, Herr Mortimer, such an idea! There is a grand review of the soldiery. Come, get up. We must go and see it. I would not miss it for the world."

"Do not be so excited, Jules; it is the last place to which I would dream of taking you. Your father----"

"Wrote me not to fail to see the Austrian troops if I had an opportunity."

Perhaps there was some object in that, and to Jules's delight I consented to take seats on the lumbering stage-coach that was to leave the hotel with other guests bent on the same holiday excursion. I was the more complacent as I reflected that the steamer did not leave Vienna till five o'clock, and I thus saw a means of keeping Jules out of further mischief.

We reached the review ground. It was indeed a gorgeous scene. Crimson and gold, blue and silver flashed back the sun's rays, bugles sounded, and cannon roared.

I was not quite at my ease, however, as I noticed the interest I was exciting in a resplendent official, whose eyes were continually on me.

At last, to my dismay, he beckoned to me.

"Sir, your pa.s.sport?"

"It is gone to the bureau to be _vise_," and then followed a pathetic recital of the annoyances I had been subjected to.

"Will the Herr ride or walk?" was the stereotyped response.

"Where?"

"To Vienna. Until this pa.s.sport is found the Herr must consider himself under arrest."

In vain I pleaded the unprotected position of my young companion. All the concession I could get was permission to speak a few words with him, which I did with much caution, simply a.s.suring him of my speedy return, and extracting his promise that, if I were detained by my "friend," he would return with the fiacre to the hotel, and quietly await my arrival.

"I will do all the good Englishman asks of me"; and a warm pressure of the hand made me feel that Jules understood the extremity of the case.

At once to the bureau.

I was so confident of finding the pa.s.sport and utterly confounding the officer who had given me all this trouble, that I am afraid my manner was rather supercilious, to say the least of it.

The commissaire heard my story somewhat impatiently.

"The officer's number to whom you say you gave your pa.s.sport?"

"I did not notice it."

"His name?"

"I never demanded it."

A grin on the face of the commissaire, a very sarcastic curl of the lip, a shrug of the shoulders, an ominous silence.

"Sir," said I, somewhat sobered by the course events had taken, "I am a British subject!"

"Zo?"

"A graduate of the University of Oxford."

"Zo?"

"Tutor in the family of the Earl of Tottenbridge."

"Zo?"

"Son of a county magistrate."

"Zo? And nevertheless you are arrested for wandering about like a rogue and vagabond without a pa.s.sport. We know not who you are, what you are, where you come from. The question with us is, Where is your pa.s.sport?

It is enough." And before I could reply his back was turned.

A whitewashed room, sixteen feet square, one barred window, one iron bedstead, one wooden bench--such was my apartment and the inventory of its furniture; and I felt my heart sink as the key in the door turned with an ominous click, and I was left to enjoy my solitary meditations.

What could I do? For an hour I racked my brain. Dared I apply to the English emba.s.sy? I would, come what might of it. A few blows on the panel of my door brought the officer.

"I wish to make immediate application to Lord Cowley."

"I will see."

He returned in a few minutes.

"Lord Cowley is not in Vienna now. He is at the Grand Baths."

"Still, there is somebody at the emba.s.sy office. I must go there."

After a brief interview with his superior, the permission was accorded.

The officer and I reached the emba.s.sy building, and as I pa.s.sed the jovial English porter at the door, my heart rose, for already I felt the shadow of the British lion over me.

A pale, emaciated, gentlemanly youth, with a gold eyegla.s.s, was standing with his back to the fire, reading a copy of the "Times,"

while at his feet lay a magnificent bull-and-mastiff, by far the more dignified animal of the two. The exquisite gave no sign of his knowledge of our presence.

"Ahem!"

No attention.

The dog yawned, the great clock on the wall ticked with an aggravating loudness, and at last I broke out--

"Sir, I am in a terrible dilemma. I have lost my pa.s.sport. I trusted it to a rascally policeman to take to the bureau to get _vise_, and now I am apprehended, put in a miserable prison, called a rogue and vagabond by a confounded commissaire." The effect of my eloquence on the attache was amusing. Down went the paper.

"Oh, I say--you know--you mustn't--indeed, you mustn't. The office can't be approached in this manner--very irregular, by Jove, very irregular."

"What must I do? The consequences may be fearful----"

"Write to Lord John Russell at the F. O. If he knows anything about you, you can pet.i.tion Lord Cowley, and in the course of a few weeks----"

"A few weeks! a cycle of years! I must be liberated at once. The safety, nay, the very life of a helpless boy depends upon it."