“Louis Napoleon.”
“True, he would—I need not have asked the question.”
“He’d be sure to place me under arrest, and keep me so, as long as my liberty is deemed dangerous to the crowned conspirators. He has become their most trusted tipstaff and detective. There’s not one of his sergents-de-ville who has not got my portrait in his pocket. The only chance left me, to run the gauntlet through France, is to travel in disguise. It is for that I want you.”
“How can I assist you, my dear Governor?”
“By making me your servant—your valet du voyage.” Maynard could not help smiling at the idea. The man who had held mastery over a whole nation, who had created an army of two hundred thousand men, who had caused trembling throughout the thrones of Europe—that man to be obsequiously waiting upon him, brushing his coat, handing him his hat, and packing his portmanteau!
“Before you make answer,” continued the ex-Dictator of Hungary, “let me tell you all. If taken in France, you will have to share my prison; if upon Austrian territory, your neck, like my own, will be in danger of a halter. Now, sir, do you consent?” It was some seconds before Maynard made reply; though it was not the halter that hindered him. He was thinking of many other things—among them Blanche Vernon.
Perhaps but for the reminiscence of that scene under the deodara, and its results, he might have hesitated longer—have even turned recreant to the cause of revolutionary liberty!
Its memory but stimulated him to fresh efforts for freedom, and without staying longer, he simply said: “I consent?”