"Why," said the Hussar blindly, "I have always wanted to see these wonderful mountains, so I just went out for a day or two to see the scenery."
"What do you think this is, a summer resort?" roared the Russian colonel.
The Hussar was ordered for a time into solitary confinement. But the Russian commandant was a pretty good fellow. Besides, with his education and his knowledge of Russian, the Hungarian was very useful about the prison. So they restored him to favor very soon.
Meanwhile his uniform had worn out. They had to give him some kind of clothing, so they fitted him out with the clothes of a Russian peasant.
The loose, easy-going discipline of the prison, his pockets full of money, and these Russian clothes made escape the second time ridiculously easy.
He said it could scarcely be called escaping. He literally put on his hat and walked. He figured it out this time that the way to avoid detection was not to hide around dark corners; but to disarm suspicion by openly mixing with the crowds.
Wherefore he went openly down the streets to the railroad-depot, bought a ticket to Moscow in the ordinary way, and traveled just like any other passenger.
At Moscow he stopped for several weeks. His story became decidedly vague at this point.
He told me that he fell in with a woman who had the entrée to army circles in Russia and that she got him a card to a Russian officers' club where he hung around for two weeks, mingling with the officers without his nationality being suspected. The woman had in the meantime dressed him up in good clothes and had changed his Austrian money into Russian coinage.
The Hussar tried to give me the impression that the woman had fallen a victim to his manly charms and had thereby been induced to turn traitor to her country. I couldn't quite believe this, he didn't look the part.