'C'est excellent, c'est excellent! Je déclare qu'il est incorrigible. Gendarmes, remenez-le à Prison—Rue des Beguines,' exclaimed the Préfet, furiously.
'This is beyond a joke now, by Jove; it is as well the mess don't know of it,' was Goring's first thought. 'I should be quizzed to death as the agitator of Republican principles in Belgium. And this cursed confusion and detention will prevent me from discovering Alison.'
He was now deprived of her ring, in spite of all his protestations and supplications that it might be left with him; his watch and purse were also taken from him; but all were carefully put past, however, and in a few minutes more, escorted by gendarmes with drawn swords, and followed by a crowd of fellows in blue blouses and wooden sabots, he was conducted past the church of St. Augustine, in the Rue des Beguines, to the great towering prison, the walls of which overshadow the centre of the Rue des Beguines; and there, after being formally handed over to the care of the concierge in a little chamber scantily furnished, with a strongly grated window, he found himself left to his own reflections.
Pride of his position as an English gentleman, and as a British officer bearing the Royal commission, rose in revolt in his heart at the grotesque insult put upon him through some extraordinary mistake; and though he was conscious that the rascally valet Gaskins had deceived him as to the address of his master, and was aware that the latter and Sir Ranald too would now be put upon their guard and shift their quarters, thus making approaches to Alison more difficult, Goring never for a moment connected him with his present predicament, the escape from which, by some legal and constitutional measure, would have to be seen to at once. Doubtless with morning the whole folly of the affair would be brought to light, and in the meanwhile he could but resort to patience, while the hours were chimed and carillons rung in the adjacent church of St. André, wherein a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots now marks the grave of two English ladies, her attendants, one of whom received her last embrace previous to her execution.
He could also hear the artillery trumpets sounding tattoo in the Caserne des Predicateurs, and the sound made him think of the merriment and luxury prevailing at that very hour in the mess-room at Atdershot, and of his regiment now far away on the billow in the transport then steaming along the western coast of Africa.
Then his adopted patience deserted him, and he started to his feet, only to anathematise the people of Antwerp generally, their authorities in particular, and to seat himself hopelessly again on a somewhat hard chair.
Morning came; the day passed on and the evening also, and again he heard the shrill trumpets pealing out tattoo in the echoing square of the artillery barracks; and many days and nights followed each other, till he was well-nigh mad with exasperation and anxiety, but no token came of release or further examination.
If some absurd or misleading paragraph appeared in the Belgian papers, and from these found its way into the English journals, what strange views of his predicament might not be taken by his friends and the military authorities at home!
But the Belgian police, like other similar forces on the Continent, are very reticent with reference to their own movements and affairs; and, as yet, they prevented him from communicating with our consul at Antwerp, our ambassador at Brussels, or by letter with his solicitors, Messrs. Taype, Shawrpe, & Scrawly, Gray's Inn Square, the presence of one of whom in Antwerp might have proved of vast service to him just then. So the weary days passed on, and Bevil Goring thought with truth that he would have cause to remember long the bitter coffee and onion soup—or soupe-maigre—and the Ratatouil, Flemish for a ragout made of scraps of meat, during his enforced abode in the Rue des Beguines!