"Come," said Rakoczy, taking my arm; "let us leave before your brother starts on the war-path again."
"The next thing," I remarked, when we were again in the street, "is to get away from Vienna. It seems to me that we are in an awkward fix. The imperialists will probably kill us because we are Hungarians, and the insurgents because we are not."
"We can go to-morrow, unless the count has given orders to arrest us at the gates."
"Perhaps it will be better," exclaimed Stephen. "I am tired of Vienna."
"I hope the fräulein will not be hurt in the scuffle."
"Why not stay behind to protect her?" said Rakoczy in his laughing way, little dreaming that we should all three be compelled to remain.
Yet that is what happened, as the next morning the gates were zealously guarded, and we tried in vain to pass. It was rumoured that Jellachich, the Ban of Croatia, had arrived within a few hours' march of the town, and the insurgents were taking extraordinary precautions.
Guns were placed above the gates, and men stood near with lighted matches; National Guards patrolled everywhere; ten thousand men--students, Nationals, men in blouses, and coatless artisans with upturned shirt-sleeves--lined the ramparts; crowds thronged the steeples, gazing earnestly for the first signs of the savage Croats.
We spent the day in ineffectual efforts to leave the capital, and on trying again the next morning found we had lost the last chance.
Jellachich was actually in sight, and from the roofs of the lofty buildings we could see the varied uniforms of his motley army.