THE GAME OF CHANCE.
CHAPTER I.
At nightfall, on an autumnal evening, when the stars were just beginning to twinkle overhead like diamonds on a canopy of azure, two young men were standing together, engaged in conversation on the steps of the Black Eagle, a fashionable hotel in one of the principal streets of the gay and celebrated city of Vienna. One of them wore the rich uniform of an Austrian hussar; the other was clad in the civic costume of a gentleman.
"So, all is completed at the ministry of war, except the signature of the commission, and the payment of the purchase money?" said the soldier.
"Exactly so."
"And to-morrow, then," continued the hussar, "I am to congratulate you on the command of a company, and salute you as Captain Ernest Walstein."
The last speaker was Captain Christian Steinfort, an officer who had seen some two years' service.
"Ah! my boy!" continued he, twirling his jet black mustache, "your uniform will be a passport to the smiles of the fair. But you already seem to have made your way to the good graces of Madame Von Berlingen, the rich widow who resides at this hotel."
"Bah! she is forty," answered Ernest, carelessly.