“I am charmed,” she cried, “although we shall be lonely without you and Captain St. Arnaud. But you will have so much to tell us when you get back! We shall be glad to take care of Lady Hamilton while you are away. Luckily, I do not dance to-morrow night, so we can spend the evening together.”
The Empress Queen, with her usual liberality, which sometimes exceeded her means, having provided them with a considerable sum of money, next day they made comfortable arrangements for the journey. Prince Kaunitz offered them a small but excellent travelling chaise, which, being brought to the house, Lady Hamilton and Madame Ziska proceeded to stock with comforts not likely to be found on the road. By eight o’clock their preparations were complete, and they sat down to a merry supper in Madame Ziska’s apartment.
“I shall miss you both more than I can say,” said Lady Hamilton, “and I shall not go to the palace or accept any invitations until you return. But that I will not mind. I shall amuse myself, if Madame Ziska will permit, by teaching Freda and Gretchen English, and so the weeks will pass more quickly.”
“I shall be only too grateful,” quickly replied Madame Ziska, who saw the advantage of her two young daughters having the training of a woman so highly educated and well bred as Lady Hamilton.
“And pray,” she continued, laughing, as they drew up to the table, “to make my most respectful compliments to the King of Prussia, and to tell him that his snuff-box was treated with the highest respect wherever I showed it, and often got me accommodations at inns and post-houses when it would have been otherwise impossible. Likewise say to him, that I think my dancing has improved—the Emperor has been pleased to say that the ballerina of the Queen of the Naiads is the best thing yet done at the opera.”
St. Arnaud and Gavin faithfully promised all.
The evening sped rapidly away, all, even Kalenga, being in the highest spirits. When the clock struck twelve, and the chaise was at the door, Kalenga, raising himself in his wheeled chair, proposed the health of the two departing ones, which was drank with enthusiasm. Then followed affectionate farewells, Gavin running back from the door for a last embrace from his mother, and soon they were clattering off over the frozen roadway toward the gates of the city.
As soon as they had passed the gates, and got into the open country beyond, St. Arnaud, who was an experienced traveller, settled himself to sleep; but Gavin, who had never made a journey in a chaise before, was too excited to sleep. He compared his lot then—an officer with a recognized position as a gentleman, regular, though small pay, his mother with him, her position recognized, a powerful friend in St. Arnaud, and other true friends in Madame Ziska and her husband, the protection of a great and generous sovereign like Maria Theresa—and the contemplation of these things caused a wave of reverential gratitude to overwhelm his soul. A year before he had been a private soldier, with all the hardships of a private soldier’s lot in those times. He had been ragged and cold and hungry; his fellow-soldiers, brave, honest fellows though they might be, were rude and ignorant men, of coarse manners, and rarely could any of them read or write. He recalled that he had not been really unhappy during the time that he had trudged along, carrying a musket—in fact, it gave him something like a shock to remember that he had begun to like the life, and felt less and less the ambition to rise to something better. Perhaps he would have risen in any event, but, surely, the finding himself alone with St. Arnaud in a freezing desert after Rosbach was the most fortunate circumstance of his whole life. These thoughts crowded upon his mind, but after a while the steady motion of the chaise made him drowsy, and he slept.
Seven days were they on the journey, although they travelled as fast as the state of the country would permit, and at noon on the seventh day they came within sight of the towers and steeples of Breslau, and met the Prussian outposts.
St. Arnaud, tying his white handkerchief to the point of his sword, got out of the chaise, as did Gavin, and advanced toward the Prussian sentinel. The officer of the guard was at once sent for, and after a very short delay they were blindfolded and driven inside the walls and fortifications.