I stood back stock-still. Here was a quandary indeed!
“But, my God!” I cried to him, “I am a traveller. I have but passed through the town. I have come these eighty leagues upon urgent business, and I must see some one who I am told is in the palace.”
So saying I drew forth a louis d’or, a stock of which I kept loose for such emergencies in my side pocket, and tossed it to the rascal.
“Now get me speech with a person in authority,” said I.
With one hand, and without lowering his fire-lock, he nimbly caught the coin on the fling and placed it in his mouth, after which he shook his head and remarked indistinctly:
“‘Tis no use.”
And then at last my sorely-tried patience broke down, impotent otherwise in front of his menacing barrel. I cursed him long and loud with that choiceness and variety of epithet of which my own squadron-life experience as well as my apprenticeship to my great-uncle had given me a command.
The clamour we made first drew the other soldiers, and next a little dapper officer from the guard-room behind the inner gate, who ran out towards us, and at the utmost pitch of his naturally piping voice demanded in the name of all gods, thunders, and lightning-blasts what the matter was.
My particular sentinel’s utterance was something impeded by the louis d’or in his cheek, and I was consequently able to offer an explanation before him. Uncovering my head and bowing, I introduced myself in elegant phraseology, though of necessity, for the distance between us, in tones more suited to the parade ground than to a polite ceremony, and laid bare my unfortunate position. I bewailed that through my brief halt in Budissin, ignorant of the infection, I had evidently made myself amenable to quarantine, and requested his courteous assistance in the matter.
My name was evidently quite unfamiliar to his ears, but, perceiving that he had to deal with an equal, the little officer at once returned my salute with an extra flourish, and my civility by ordering the sentry to stand aside. Then, advancing gingerly in the mud to a more reasonable interval for conversation, he informed me, with another sweeping bow, that he was Captain Freiherr von Krappitz, and that, while it would be his pleasure to serve me in every possible manner, he regretted deeply that his orders were such that he could only ratify the sentry’s conduct.