"What is his name?"
"Speyer,—Henry Speyer."
"A German?"
"No; he's of no nation at all. He belongs to a sort of mongrel breed, from the Rock of Gibraltar,—a cross of half the nations in Europe. They go by the name of Rock Scorpions. Speyer is a compound of German, Spanish, English, French, Genoese, and Moorish, and the result is the greatest rascal that ever went unhung. Still you ought to know him; he is a curiosity,—one of the men of the times. If you want to know the secret springs of the revolution that all the newspapers will be full of not many years from this, why, Speyer is one of them."
"But is there not some risk in being in communication with such a man?"
"Yes, if one isn't cautious. But, as I'll manage it, it will be perfectly safe."
Vinal, though morbidly timorous as respected peril to life or limb, was not wholly deficient in the courage of the intriguer—a quality quite distinct from the courage of the soldier. Any thing which promised to show him human nature under a new aspect, or disclose to him a hidden spring of human action, had a resistless attraction in his eyes. He therefore assented to Richards's proposal, and promised that, at some more auspicious time, he would go with him to the patriot's lodging.
CHAPTER XXX.
| Those travelled youths whom tender mothers wean And send abroad to see and to be seen, Have made all Europe's vices so well known, They seem almost as natural as our own.—Churchill. |