"I told him my name."
He consulted his list.
"'Here,' he said, 'is your passport.'
"I looked at it. It read, 'Good for the frontier.'
"'Then I cannot enter Dantzic?' I asked.
"'Not under pain of death.'
"I thought of my mother, bereaved of her husband and her sons; I uttered a sigh, committed her to God, and took up my march. I had no money, but fortunately in a secret fold of my pocketbook I had managed to save the note which Kosciusko had given me, and which I have shown you.
"I took my way through Custrin, Frankfort and Leipsic. As sailors are guided by the polar star so I looked to France, that beacon of liberty, and hastened toward it. Six weeks of hunger, fatigue, miseries, and humiliations were forgotten when I set foot in the holy land of liberty yesterday, all save the hope of vengeance. I threw myself upon my knees and blessed God that I was as strong as the crime of which I had been made the victim. In all your soldiers I saw brothers, not marching to the conquest of the world, but to the deliverance of the oppressed. A flag passed; I sprang toward it, asking permission of the officer to embrace this sacred emblem, the symbol of universal brotherhood. The officer hesitated.
"'Ah!' I cried, 'I am a Pole, and proscribed, and I have come nine hundred miles to join you. This flag is mine also. I have the right to kiss it, to press it to my heart, and to put my lips to it.'