“Simply from my dictation,” replied the other, calmly. “The sentiments will not be yours, but mine. The mere act of the pen, for which these fingers are too weak, can never wound the susceptibility of even your loyalty. You are not satisfied with this?”
Frank shook his head dubiously.
“Then leave me where I am. I ask no companionship, nor friendship either,—or, if you prefer it, hasten to Milan and denounce me as a traitor. My character is well enough known not to need corroboration to your charge; the allegation will never hurt me, and it may serve you, Ay, Herr Lieutenant, it will prove an opportune escape for the disgrace of this unlucky night. They will forgive you much for such a disclosure.”
Frank's temper would have been insufficient to bear such an insult as this, had not the words been spoken by one already excited to the madness of fever, and whose eye now flashed with the wild glare of mania.
It was long before Frank could calm down the passionate excitement of the sick man, and fit him for the task he wished to execute; and even then Ravitzky undertook it in a sullen, resentful spirit that seemed to say that nothing short of the necessity would have reduced him to such a confidence. Nor was this all. Pain and nervous irritability together made him difficult, and occasionally impossible, to understand. The names of people and places of Hungarian origin Frank in vain endeavored to spell; the very utmost he could do being to follow the rapid utterance with which the other at times spoke, and impart something like consistency to his wild, unconnected story.
That Ravitzky had been employed in secret communications with some of the Hungarian leaders was plain enough, and that he had held intercourse with many not yet decided how to act was also apparent. The tangled web of intrigue was, however, too intricate for faculties laboring as his were; and what between his own wanderings and Frank's misconceptions, the document became as mysterious as an oracle. Perhaps Frank was not sorry for this obscurity; or, perhaps, like the lady who consoled herself for the indiscretion of keeping a lover's picture by the assurance that “it was not like him,” he felt an equal satisfaction in thinking that the subject of his manuscript could never throw any light upon any scheme that ever existed. Now it ran on about the feelings of the Banat population, and their readiness to take up arms; now it discussed the fordage #of rivers in Transylvania. Here was an account of the arms in the arsenal of Arad; there a suggestion how to cut off Nugent's corps on the Platen See. At times it seemed as if a great Sclav revolt were in contemplation; at others the cause appeared that of the Hungarian nobles alone, anxious to regain all the privileges of the old feudalism. “At all events, it is rebellion,” thought Frank; and heartily glad was he when the task was completed, and everything save the address appended. It was now sealed, and by Ravitzky's advice deposited within the linings of Frank's pelisse, till such time as a safe opportunity might offer of forwarding it to Walstein.
The task occupied some hours; and when it was completed, so tired was Frank by former exertion and excitement, that he lay down on the floor, and with his head on the sick man's bed, fell fast asleep. Such had been his eagerness to finish this lengthy document, that he had never perceived that he was watched as he wrote, and that from the little copse beside the window a man had keenly observed him for several hours long.
Ravitzky, too, fell into a heavy slumber; and now, as both slept, a noiseless foot crossed the floor, and a man in the dark dress of a priest drew nigh the bedside. Waiting for some seconds as if to assure himself of the soundness of their sleep, he bent down and examined their features. Of the cadet he took little notice; but when his eyes fell upon Frank's face, pale and exhausted as he lay, he almost started back with astonishment, and for several minutes he seemed as if trying to disabuse himself of an illusion. Even the uniform appeared to surprise him, for he examined its details with the greatest care. As he stood thus, with the pelisse in his hand, he seemed suddenly to remember the letter he had seen placed within the lining; and then, as suddenly drawing out his penknife, he made a small aperture In the seam, and withdrew the paper. He was about to replace the pelisse upon the bed, when, by a second thought, as it were, he tore off the envelope of the letter, and reinserted it within the lining.
A single glance at it appeared to convey the whole tenor of its contents, and his dark eyes ran over the words with eager haste; then, turning away, he moved cautiously from the room. Once in the free air again, he reopened the paper, his sallow features seeming to light up with a kind of passionate lustre as he traced the lines. “It is not—it cannot be without a meaning that we are thus forever meeting in life!” cried he; “these are the secrets by which destiny works its purpose, and we blindly call them accident! Even the savage knows better, and deems him an enemy who crosses his path too frequently. Ay, and it will come to this one day,” muttered he, slowly; “he or I,——he or I.” Repeating this over and over, he slowly returned to the villa.