"Is not what true?" I asked, from the sofa where I lay, apathetic and dejected, a strange contrast to my beautiful companion.
She went to the door, listened, and closed it carefully, then looked out at the open window, and having satisfied herself there was not a soul within ear-shot, she came back close to my couch, and whispered, "An English prince on the throne of Hungary, our constitution and our parliaments once more, and, above all, deliverance from the iron yoke of Austria, which is crushing us down to the very earth!"
"I have never heard of it," said I, with difficulty suppressing a smile at the visionary scheme, which must have had its origin in some brain heated and enthusiastic as that of my beautiful companion; "nor do I think, if that is all you have to look to, that there is much hope for Hungary."
She frowned angrily.
"Oh!" she answered, "you are cautious, Mr. Egerton: you will not trust me, I can see--but you might do so with safety. We are all 'right-thinkers' here. Though they swarm throughout the land, I do not believe a Government spy has ever yet set foot within the walls of Edeldorf; but I tell you, if you will not help us, we are lost. You laugh to see a girl like me interest herself so warmly about politics, but with us it is a question of life and death. Women, as well as men, have all to gain or all to lose. I repeat, if you do not help us we have nothing left to hope for. Russia will take our part, and we shall fall open-eyed into the trap. Why, even as enemies, they succeeded in ingratiating themselves with the inhabitants of a conquered country. Yes, Hungary was a conquered country, and the soldiers of the Czar were our masters. They respected our feelings, they spared our property, they treated us with courtesy and consideration, and they lavished gold with both hands, which was supplied to them by their own Government for the purpose. It is easy to foresee the result. The next Russian army that crosses the frontier will march in as deliverers, and Austria must give way. They are generous in promises, and unequalled in diplomacy. They will flatter our nobles and give us back our constitution; nay, for a time we shall enjoy more of the outward symbols of freedom than have ever yet fallen to our lot. And merely as a compliment, merely as a matter of form, a Russian Grand-Duke will occupy the palace at Pesth, and assume the crown of St. Stephen simply as the guardian of our liberties and our rights. Then will be told once more the well-known tale of Russian intrigue and Russian pertinacity. A pretence of fusion and a system of favouritism will gradually sap our nationality and destroy our patriotism, and in two generations it will be Poland over again. Well, even that would be better than what we have to endure now."
"Do you mean to say," I asked, somewhat astonished to find my companion so inveterate a hater, notwithstanding that she had warned me of this amiable eccentricity in her character,--"do you mean to say that, with all your German habits and prejudices, nay, with German as your very mother tongue, you would prefer the yoke of the Czar to that of the Kaiser?"
She drew herself up, and her voice quite trembled with anger as she replied--
"The Russians do not beat women. Listen, Mr. Egerton, and then wonder if you can at my bitter hatred of the Austrian yoke. She was my own aunt, my dear mother's only sister. I was sitting with her when she was arrested. We were at supper with a small party of relations and friends. For the moment we had forgotten our danger and our sorrows and the troubles of our unhappy country. She had been singing, and was actually seated at the pianoforte when an Austrian Major of Dragoons was announced. I will do him the justice to say that he was a gentleman, and performed his odious mission kindly and courteously enough. At first she thought there was some bad news of her husband, and she turned deadly pale; but when the officer stammered out that his business was with her, and that it was his duty to arrest her upon a charge of treason, the colour came back to her cheek, and she never looked more stately than when she placed her hand in his, with a graceful bow, and told him, as he led her away, that 'she was proud to be thought worthy of suffering for her country.' They took her off to prison that night; and it was not without much difficulty and no little bribery that we were permitted to furnish her with a few of those luxuries that to a lady are almost the necessaries of life. We little knew what was coming. Oh! Mr. Egerton, it makes my blood boil to think of it. Again, I say, were I only a man!"
Valèrie covered her face with her hands for a few seconds ere she resumed her tale, speaking in the cold, measured tones of one who forces the tongue to utter calmly and distinctly that which is maddening and tearing at the heart.
"We punish our soldiers by making them run the gauntlet between their comrades, Mr. Egerton, and the process is sufficiently brutal to be a favourite mode of enforcing discipline in the Austrian army. Two hundred troopers form a double line, at arm's-length distance apart, and each man is supplied with a stout cudgel, which he is ordered to wield without mercy. The victim walks slowly down between the lines, stripped to the waist, and at the pace of an ordinary march. I need hardly say that ere the unfortunate reaches the most distant files he is indeed a ghastly object. I tell you, this high-born lady, one of the proudest women in Hungary, was brought out to suffer that degrading punishment--to be beaten like a hound. They had the grace to leave her a shawl to cover her shoulders; and with her head erect and her arms folded on her bosom, she stepped nobly down the tyrant's ranks. The first two men refused to strike; they were men, Mr. Egerton, and they preferred certain punishment to the participation in such an act. They were made examples of forthwith. The other troopers obeyed their orders, and she reached the goal bleeding, bruised, and mangled--she, that beautiful woman, a wife and a mother. Ah! you may grind your teeth, my friend, and your dog there under the sofa may growl, but it is true, I tell you, true, I saw her myself when she returned to prison, and she still walked, so nobly, so proudly, like a Hungarian, even then. Think of our feelings and of those of her own children; think of her husband's. Mr. Egerton, what would you have done had you been that woman's husband?"