"Colonel," said Trenck, "do you remember the singular letter which I received six months since from my cousin, Baron von Trenck, colonel of the pandours?"
"Ah, you mean that letter in which he invites you to come to
Austria, and promised, should you do so, to make you his sole heir?"
"Yes, that is the letter I mean. I informed you of it at the time and asked your advice."
"What advice did I give you?"
"That I should reply kindly and gratefully to my cousin; that I
should not appear indifferent or ungrateful for a proposal by which
I might become a millionnaire. You advised me to decline going to
Austria, but only to decline so long as there was war between
Prussia and Austria."
"Well, I think the advice was good, and that you may still follow it."
"You advised me also to write to my cousin to send me some of those beautiful Hungarian horses, and promised to forward my letter through Baron von Bossart, the Saxon ambassador; but on the condition that when I received the Hungarian horses, I should present one of them to you."
"That was only a jest—a jest which binds you to nothing, and of which you have no proofs."
"I!" asked Trenck, astonished; "what proof do I need that I promised you a Hungarian horse? What do I want with proofs?"
Count Jaschinsky looked embarrassed before the open, trusting expression of the young officer. His singular remark would have betrayed him to a more suspicious, a more worldly-wise man, who would have perceived from it the possibility of some danger, from which Jaschinsky was seeking to extricate himself.