ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE.
It was a difficult country to work in owing to the very stringent police arrangements against spies of every kind, and it looked to be a most unpromising task to elicit what I wanted to know, because one was sure of being watched at every turn. As I afterwards discovered, it was through this multiplicity of police arrangements that one was able to get about with comparative ease, because if one went boldly enough it immediately argued to the watchful policeman that someone else was sure to be observing you.
Moreover, spies generally do their work single-handed, and on this occasion I was accompanied by my brother, and this made it easier for us to go about as a pair of tourists interested in the country generally. A man travelling alone is much more liable to draw attention upon himself, and therefore to go about under suspicion.
Our entry into the country was not altogether fortunate, because while yet in the train we managed to get into trouble with the guard over a window which he insisted on shutting when we wanted it open. In the same carriage with us was a gentleman of some standing in the country, and in a fit of absent-mindedness I made a little sketch of him. I had just completed it when an arm reached down over my shoulder from behind and the picture was snatched away by the observant guard of the train and taken off to be used as evidence against me.
The guard of a train in this country, I may say, ranks apparently much the same as a colonel in the army, and therefore is not a man to be trifled with. On our arrival at the terminus we found a sort of guard of honour of gendarmes waiting for us on the platform, and we were promptly marched off to the police office to account for our procedure in the train by daring to open the window when the guard wished it closed, and for drawing caricatures of a "high-born" man in the train.
We made no secret as to our identity and handed our cards to the commissary of police when we were brought up before him. He was—till that moment—glaring at us fiercely, evidently deciding what punishment to give us before he had heard our case at all. But when he saw my brother's name as an officer in the Guards, he asked: "Does this mean in the Guards of her Majesty Queen Victoria?" When he heard it was so his whole demeanour changed. He sprang from his seat, begged us to be seated, and explained it was all a mistake. Evidently Guards in his country were in very high repute. He explained to us there were certain little irritating rules on the railway which had to be enforced, but, of course, in our case we were not to be bound by such small bye-laws, and with profuse apologies he bowed us out of the office, without a stain upon our characters.
SUCCESS WITH THE BALLOON.
We did not live long without the stain. Our first anxiety was to find where and how it would be possible to see some of this equipment for which we had come to the country. Manoeuvres were going on at a place some fifty miles distant, and there, as tourists, we betook ourselves without delay. We put up at a small inn not far from the railway-station, and for the next few days we did immense walking tours, following up the troops and watching them at their work over a very extended area of country.
At last one day we sighted a balloon hanging in the sky, and we made a bee line for it until we arrived at its station. When it was hauled down and anchored to the ground the men went off to the camp to get their dinners, and the balloon was left without a soul to guard it. It was not long before we were both inside the car, taking note of everything in the shape of the instruments and their makers' names, and so had all the information it was possible to get before the men came back.