The cord was snapped asunder.
“Tell me your name, or I shall call the guards, and have you hanged on the spot.”
“My name!” the fellow exclaimed, with a laugh,—“Oh, it is well enough known everywhere,—at court, in the cottages, in the city, and on the high-road—by your Majesty’s guards, and by your Majesty’s subjects. I am the Pandour of Pandours—your correspondent, and now your cabinet counsellor. Farewell, Emperor, and remember—Speranski!”
“The cords were at the instant cut from my feet. I sprang after him; but I might as well have sprung after my own shadow. He was gone—but whether into the air or the earth, or whether the whole dialogue was not actually the work of my own imagination, favoured by the struggle with the conspirators, I cannot tell to this moment. One thing, however, was unquestionable, that I had been in the hands of murderers, for I stumbled over the two bodies of the assassins who were cut down in the mêlée. The first lamp that was brought in showed me also, that the two Pandour captains had been turned into the two Palatines of Sidlitz and Frankerin, but by what magic I cannot yet conjecture.”
A more puzzling affair never had bewildered the high and mighty functionaries of the imperial court. They pondered upon it for the day, and they might have added the year to their deliberations without being nearer the truth. The roll of the Pandours had been called over. None were missing except the two captains; and certainly the two conspirators, though in the Pandour uniform, were not of the number.
More perplexity still. The imperial horse-guards returned in the evening terribly offended by a day’s gallop through the vulgarity of the Hungarian thickets, but suffering no other loss than of a few plumes and tassels, if we except one, of pretty nearly the same kind, Prince Charles of Buntzlau. The Prince had been tempted to spur his charger through a thicket. He led the way in pursuit of the invisible enemy; he never came back. His whole regiment galloped after him in all directions. They might as well have hunted a mole; he must have gone under ground—but where, was beyond the brains of his brilliantly dressed troopers. He was un prince perdu.
Leopold was indignant at this frolic, for as such he must conceive it; and ordered one of his aides-de-camp to wait at the quarters of the corps, until the future bridegroom grew weary of his wild-goose chase, and acquaint him that the next morning was appointed for his marriage. But he returned not.
Next morning there was another fund of indignation prepared for the astonished Emperor. The bride was as undiscoverable as the bridegroom. The palace of the Princess de Marosin had been entered in the night; but her attendants could tell no more than that they found her chamber doors open, and their incomparable tenant flown, like a bird from its gilded cage. All search was made, and made in vain. The Prince returned after a week’s detention by robbers in a cave. He was ill received. Leopold, astonished and embarrassed, conscious that he was treading on a soil of rebellion, and vexed by his personal disappointments, broke up his court, and rapidly set out for the hereditary dominions.