At the next posting-house they had no trouble in securing horses, Miss Hein’s chaise and servants being well known. The postmaster and all the people were asking about the fugitives, and several detachments of soldiers had visited the place that day. St. Arnaud, talking with the postmaster, carelessly asked if descriptive handbills had been posted yet.
“We are expecting them every moment,” replied the man.
St. Arnaud then gave a personal description which could not possibly apply to either himself or Gavin; and, asking for a private room, wrote Miss Hein a note full of gratitude, to which he signed a German name. The chaise they had ordered soon appeared, and in a little while they were travelling toward the frontier.
When night fell they were entering a little mountain village marked with a cross on their map; and, driving through the steep and straggling street, they came to a shop with a bag of wool hanging in one window and a hank of yarn in the other.
They knocked, and were asked to enter by a pleasant-faced woman. The house was a kind of a rude inn, as well as shop and dwelling, and half a dozen peasants were gathered around a fire on which a pot was boiling. St. Arnaud spoke two words—“Madame Ziska”—in the woman’s ear, and she responded by an intelligent look.
“This is no place for your honours,” she said; “I have a little room off that I can give you.”
She led them into a small room, scarcely more than a shed, and shut the door. “I have change for a hundred ducats,” she whispered. “My cousin—for so Madame Ziska is, although I am not fit to be her waiting-maid—told me to give you that much money out of my savings, and you would give me a bank-note for it.”
They quickly made the exchange, and both eagerly asked for news of Madame Ziska, but there was none since she had passed through the village on her way to Vienna.
Supper was presently served—the first meal St. Arnaud and Gavin had eaten in liberty since the first night of their meeting. They were waited on by a tall, handsome, intelligent-looking girl, Bettina, the niece of the hostess. She took them for Prussian officers, and showed them the utmost ill-will. She nearly knocked Gavin’s head off with a platter when he turned to ask her some simple question, and scowled blackly at St. Arnaud when he airily threw her a kiss. They were in uproariously high spirits, although they kept their voices down as much as possible.
“This is magnificent,” cried St. Arnaud, ladling cabbage soup into his mouth. “I have altogether lost my taste for pâté de foie gras and champagne, in favor of cabbage soup and onions, bacon, and black bread. They are the real luxuries of life.” To which Gavin agreed.