“Well, that will suffice.  You have nothing more to say, baron?”

“No, colonel.  So you will have the kindness to see and hear nothing for the space of a week, but if, at the end of that time, you learn the news that the Emperor Napoleon has disappeared, you will hear it with the joy of a true patriot.  It will be reserved for you to set off at once with post horses to bear to the Count de Lille in England this message of the rescue and purification of his throne.”

“Ah, that is indeed a delightful and honorable task,” cried the colonel joyously.  “Heaven grant that it may be executed.”

“It will be, for our arrangements are well made, and we are all anxious to do our utmost to regain the greatest of blessings, over liberty.  Farewell, Colonel Mariage, in a week we shall see each other again.”

“In a week or never,” sighed Colonel Mariage, pressing the baron’s proffered hand in his own.

CHAPTER V.

COMMISSIONER KRAUS.

After taking leave of Colonel Mariage, old Baron von Moudenfels passed through the antechamber, where he found the valet, with slow and weary steps.  Panting and resting on every stair, he descended the staircase, coughing, and moved slowly past the houses to the nearest carriage, into which he climbed with difficulty and sank with a groan upon the cushions.

“Where shall I drive, your lordship?” asked the hackman, lifting his whip to rouse the weary nags from their half slumber.

“Where?  I don’t know myself, my friend,” replied the old man, sighing.  “I only want to ride about a little while to rest my poor old limbs and get some fresh air.  So take me through the busiest streets in Vienna, that I may see them.  I am a stranger who has seen little of your capital, because his weary limbs will not carry him far.  So drive very slowly, at a walk, that I may see and admire everything—­so slowly that if I liked anything especially, and wanted to get out, I could do so without stopping the vehicle.”

“Then your lordship does not want to drive by the trip, but by the hour?”

“Yes, my friend, by the hour, and here are four florins in prepayment for two hours.  You’ll have no occasion to trouble yourself now, but drive as slowly as possible and your horses will be able to rest.  So go on through the busiest streets, and at a walk.”

“Well, that will suit my poor beasts,” said the driver, laughing, “they have already been standing for six hours, and stiff enough from it.”

He touched his horses’ backs with the are whip, and the animals started.

The carriage now rolled on slowly, like a hearse, at the pace drivers usually take when they wish to notify pedestrians that they have no occupant in their vehicles and can receive a passenger.  So no one noticed the slow progress of the carriage; no one in the crowded streets through which it passed heeded it.  Yet many a person might have been interested if he could have cast a glance within.