"O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope in years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home,"
The lieutenant sat thinking in silence for a long time in an ancient arm-chair in his room; and when at last he went to bed and to sleep, he dreamt he was on a black cloud, whirled along by a tempest; the lightning flashed about him, the thunder groaned, and he was borne farther and farther from the mild rays of the moon, though she still pursued him with her peaceful light.
CHAPTER III.
[VIENNA].
A number of carriages rolled rapidly along the Ballhofsplatz behind the royal castle of Hofburg in Vienna, and drew up one after another before the brilliantly lighted portal of the Office of State. Fashionable equipages, with servants in various liveries, arrived; the porter, in his light blue coat embroidered with gold and with his long staff, hurried to receive the ladies who alighted in rich evening dress, well wrapped up in their warm mantles and hoods; they hastened through the large doorway, mounted the broad staircase to the right and entered the upper apartments of the splendid palace in which Kaunitz and Metternich had striven to prove the words true, Austria est imperatura orbi universo. It was now occupied by Lieutenant Field Marshal Mensdorff-Pouilly, minister of the empire and of foreign affairs.
Amongst the carriages there were a number of fesche (cabs); they are always used by the gentlemen of Vienna to go about in, in the town, however extensive their own stables, and the porter received them with the same alacrity that he bestowed on the occupants of the more fashionable carriages.
A young officer got out of one of these cabs dressed in the brilliant variegated Uhlan uniform of green and scarlet glittering with gold. He threw off his large white cloak, left it in the carriage, and desired the coachman to wait for him near the Burgplatz.