"MORIAMUR PRO REGE NOSTRO."
Chapter I.
| "Our coming Is not for salutation: we have business." Ben. Jonson. |
On the 9th of September 1741, shortly after the hour of nightfall, a silvery mist hung over the broad stream of the Danube, and the environs of the city of Presburg—at that time considered the capital of Hungary—and shrouded the earth with its grey veil; although the heavens above were bright and clear, and the stars shone cheerily and proudly, as if no earthly influence could damp or dull them. Before the St Michael's gate, which opens on the side of the town the most remote from the Danube, and on to the road leading into the interior of the country, and towards the first low ridge of the Carpathians which skirts Presburg to the north, sat a traveller on horseback—his ample cloak wrapped carefully about his person, as much, it would seem, to screen him from observation, as from the first freshness of the commencing autumn season, and his broad three-cornered and gold-laced hat pulled down upon his brow.
He had ridden, at the brisk pace, across the stone bridge which leads over a dry moat to the old gateway, and had suddenly checked his horse on finding the gate closed before him.
"Corpo di Bacco!" he exclaimed aloud, in a tone of intense vexation. "The gate is shut for the night—I feared as much."
"What's to be done!" he continued to murmur to himself, after a pause. "To wake the guardian of the gate, and demand an entrance, would be to excite attention, and subject myself, perhaps, to questionings. No, no! That, above all, must be avoided. And yet, see him I must to-night. Time presses. Should the devil, who has served me so well as yet, desert me now, and take flight, the coward! before a few inches of deal board, and a few pounds of hammered iron! Bolts and bars! Bagatelles! Fortunately the old fox has taken up his earth near the gate. If I calculate aright, the hinder windows of his lodging must look out upon the moat; and I will try whether I cannot come to speech of him."
"Fortuna, jade! Thou art propitious still, if yonder rays be those from the old ivy-owl's watch-lamp!" muttered the traveller once more to himself, as he looked towards a light, which apparently struggled to send its gleams through the thick haze, from a low window of one of the houses overhanging the dry moat, to the left of the gateway. "At all events, I'll even risk the venture; and if, after all, I am out in my reckoning, and should stumble either upon an amorous dame awaiting her adored, or a mad student seeking the philosopher's stone—should I appear as a spirit of love from above, or a spirit of darkness from below—Cospetto! I'll play my part to the life, and find an entrance to this cursed town, spite of locked gates and barred posterns! The Virgin be praised! I am no schoolboy at my first adventure."