When I said adieu to Jules that evening, after a long ramble over the endless corn fields that bordered the "road to Waterloo," I saw with pleasure that I had awakened in him a generous confidence. He too had, by his artless manner, inspired in me no common interest.
We started. Six days' journey to reach Vienna, a hundred-mile trip up the Danube to Buda, seven leagues in a calèche, and we should be at Dressdorf Castle.
Uneventful the days were. Poor Jules, weary with travel, talked but little, for which I was appropriately thankful. It was painful to see how he shrank from the gaze of any official who might question us a little closely as to our destination, and to watch his quivering lips as he muttered in response to my assurances of safety, "I trust all to the good Englishman."
As we neared the Austrian frontier he harped more on the subject of his Austrian wrongs, and I was frequently obliged to check him. A fire seemed consuming the boy, a burning vengeance toward the oppressor.
We reached Vienna at dusk on the sixth day, and put up at the Hôtel d'Hollande, according to the suggestions of Danneris. Jules complained of sick headache, and I was somewhat relieved to hear him suggest bed.
It was not till I had seen him safely settled, and had extracted a promise from him not to leave his room, that I felt at liberty to call a few hours my own.
Having dined, I stood on the doorstep of the hotel smoking a cigar and revolving in my mind where I should spend my evening, when I was accosted by a police agent making some inquiry about my passport.
"By the way," said I, "I never was in Austria before, but in France I have been accustomed to give a gensdarme a couple of francs to take my passport to the bureau of the police to be visé."
"Herr Engländer can pursue the same plan here," was the polite rejoinder. "I shall be happy to oblige him."
Glad to be relieved of the bother, I handed him the document. He briefly compared my person with the description, and then queried: