Every waking ear in the neighborhood, and there were now a good many,
pricked with curiosity as the Sergeant half-rose, and, inclining his
inflamed countenance and bearded lips toward the ear of his selected
confidant, continued in a hoarse rumbling undertone:
"Two of those _verdammte_ English newspaper-scribblers that have got
on the blind side of Their Excellencies and His Majesty the
Commander-in-Chief were at the station at Berlin picking up
information the very day we entrained. Well do I know that paunchy
little one with the big beard, who has, they say, as many Orders as a
Field-Marshal, and who will venture to thrust himself upon Our Moltke
in his study, and accost His Excellency Count Bismarck upon the very
doorsteps of the Reichstag itself. They got off three trains ahead
of us, paying for men and horses and trucks, to Cologne; and if this
fellow were not a knave, would he not have gone with them? _Ach,
ja_! It would have been so! But they did not even know him, though
he pretended to touch his cap to them.... I tell you he turned as
red as beetroot when they passed him without a glance. _Nu, nu!_ he
is an unlicensed meddler, if not a French spy, speaking English. Do
they not teach it at their Lycées? And he has got on the blind side
of the Commandant at Berlin and the _Herr_ Colonel. But I, Sergeant
Schmidt, have my weather-eye open, and it sticks in my gizzard that
our so-glorious Moltke, let alone His Majesty, should with so much
civility these quill-driving vagabonds encourage; when they say the
French Emperor has given orders that, should the like of them about
the heels of his Army Corps be caught sniffing, they are to be shot."
"Possibly the Napoleon has more deficiencies to be ashamed of than we
have, _Herr_ Sergeant!"
Taking a deep breath, the Sergeant blew himself out to the utmost of
his capacity and bellowed:
"_Himmeldonnerwetter!_ are you going to insinuate in my presence that
the Prussian Army has anything at all to be ashamed of? Now you've
waked this rascal with your racket, maybe you'll sit on his head
while I go through his pockets. Here, Braun and Kleiss, catch hold
of his arms and legs!"
Waking in the chiaroscuro of the smoke-filled, lamplit troop-carriage
to find himself in the brawny grip of the aforesaid Braun and Kleiss,
P. C. Breagh fought for freedom, yelling as one possessed, and
lashing out with all his might. In the heat of the scrimmage that
followed, as a muscular arm in a coarse blue sleeve came round his
neck from behind and choked him into silence, somebody said in his
ear:
"Keep still ... not hurt you! Only going ... search!"
And before he had rallied his wits sufficiently to realize that the
warning was in English, a pair of extra-sized hands had deftly
emptied the pockets of the old brown Norfolk jacket, relieved him of
the cherished binoculars, a brand-new revolver, and a purse and
letter-case that had been hidden in his bosom next the skin. Then, a
soiled newspaper having been spread upon the carriage-bench and the
pieces of conviction arranged upon it, Sergeant Schmidt, surrounded
by an audience of admiring inferiors, commenced to interrogate their
owner:
"What is this?" He held up the well-used briar-root. "A pipe, and
yet it might be used to conceal dispatches or tracings. A pistol
also. On the principle of the French mitraille, with many barrels.
Prisoner, answer! Where did you get this?"
Returned P. C. Breagh, scarlet and breathing shortly:
"I bought it in Berlin from a pawnbroker in the Landsberger-strasse.
By what right..."
Someone behind hacked him on the ankle, driving home the axiom that
silence was wisdom, and he subsided, boiling within, as the Colt, a
nearly brand-new six-barreled weapon, seen and purchased, together
with its box of three hundred cartridges, for seven of P. C. Breagh's
cherished sovereigns, was laid by, while the Sergeant, breathing
stertorously, examined the contents of the purse. He snorted,
letting the bright coins run through his greedy fingers like yellow
water:
"Nine pieces of gold. French coins, too, or call me a sheepshead!"
"At your service, Herr Sergeant," put in the smooth, well-bred voice
of Valverden, following on the ominous murmur that had greeted the
Sergeant's announcement; "the money is as English as this revolver is
American. Prove the first for yourself. When has the French Emperor
figured in a woman's hair and _corsage_?"
A guffaw went up. P. C. Breagh, recognizing the voice which had
spoken from behind him, realized that here was a friend in need. But
an attempt at speech on his part was frustrated by an ominous
tightening of the muscular arm that had previously half-strangled
him. The Sergeant, his fiery pot-zeal rather damped by frequent
set-backs, snapped-to the purse and said, keeping it tucked in one
capacious palm, as he shook out the contents of the letter-case:
"_So_! He is cunning, like many another of his kidney. Yet it may
be here is proof sufficient to show him a rogue! Who here reads
French?"
"I do, _Herr_ Sergeant." Once again the well-bred voice of
Valverden. The Sergeant grunted surlily:
"There is another here ... Private Kunz!"
The spectacled soldier who read Homer in the original, and who had
been violently displaced when the muscular Braun and the athletic
Kleiss had obeyed the order to pinion the suspected one, shot bolt
upright in his distant corner, saluted and said in a meek voice:
"At your service, _Herr_ Sergeant!"
"Private Kunz, canst thou read French?"
"_Zu befehl, Herr_ Sergeant!" The spectacled private added as the
Sergeant passed him over the contents of the letter-case: "But these
letters are not in French. Two are in English, and one is in German."
The Sergeant scowled and thundered:
"Thou art an ass!"
"At your service, Herr Sergeant," mildly agreed the spectacled
soldier, "but Private Count von Schön-Valverden, who understands the
French and English languages, will corroborate my statement if you
will kindly refer to him."
"'Kindly refer.' ... 'Corroborate my statement.' ..." The Sergeant,
purple in the gills, and with bolting eyes, loosened his collar-hook
before he launched into profanity: "_Potzblitz_! Never did I meet
with language to equal thine. What wert thou as a civilian before
thou didst enter the Army?"
"Graduate of the University of Würzburg, _Herr_ Sergeant," faltered
the spectacled Guardsman, "and _Privat-docent_ in Chemistry and
Philosophy. Occupying the post of assistant to Herr Weber,
Dispensing Chemist, of Strahlsund, near Stettin."
"_Sehrgut_, Private Kunz," said the Sergeant, conscious of the grins
lurking behind the respectful faces about him. "Tell us plainly, and
without lying or skipping, what are these papers the fellow has got
on him? Put him back on the seat, Braun and Kleiss, and sit on
either side, each taking a wing. Now, Kunz, do thou begin!"
And the little sheaf that had been transferred from the horny
clutches of the Sergeant, to the yellow-stained sensitive-looking
fingers of the chemist's assistant, was subjected to the scrutiny of
the weak eyes behind his large round spectacles, as sleepy-looking
Westphalian villages of cottages with tall tiled roofs, grouped about
squat, low-spired churches; and leagues of rye and barley, almost
ready for the sickle, streamed by the half-glazed windows, all black
in shadow and white in the clear, pure radiance of August's crescent
moon.
_Item_, a worn letter in English handwriting of the legal kind, dated
in the January previous, and directed to P. C. Breagh, Esq., Care of
Frau Busch, Jaeger-strasse, Schwärz-Brettingen. _Item_, a passport
issued some ten days previously, to the same person on application at
the London Foreign Office, on disbursement of the sum of Two
Shillings, and authorizing him, on payment of the proper dues and at
his own risk, to proceed _via_ Ostend to Berlin. _Item_, another
passport, procured as a last resource--granting the said P. C. Breagh
permission on the part of the Berlin Foreign Office, and as a
strictly non-combatant British subject, to transfer himself, _via_
Belgium and Luxembourg, to French territory. Lastly, a half-sheet of
tough Chancellory note-paper, covered with the large, closely-set,
vigorous handwriting of the man who was meant when newspaper-editors
and politicians, diplomats and monarchs, guttersnipes and generals,
talked of Prussia. What would happen when that came under the
spectacles of the ex-chemist's assistant? P. C. Breagh thirsted to
know.
What happened was, that the Sergeant, rendered impatient by delay on
the part of the spectacled one, grabbed at the documents and dropped
them on the unclean floor. The half-sheet of Chancellory note was
picked up by Valverden. He gave it one glance and said, smoothly and
with an indefinable change in the tone of the voice that P. C. Breagh
had thought so friendly:
"I would put this paper back with the rest and return them to their
owner, Herr Sergeant, and prosecute no further inquiries, if I were
you."
"_Nu_? ... _Was_? I cannot read the crabbed stuff that is written
and printed on the other papers," grunted the Sergeant. "But this
seems wholesome German.... What says it, then? Tell us, you, since
that _gimpel_ in glasses can make nothing of it, for all his brag."
Valverden obeyed and read:
"_The bearer of this is an Englishman, named Patrick Carolan Breagh,
speaking German with a slight accent. Height five feet nine inches,
age 23. Hair reddish and curling, complexion fresh, much freckled.
Short, straight nose, gray eyes with dots of yellow, chin square,
slightly cleft. Further his desire to proceed with our troops, if
possible. I can personally vouch for his honesty and good faith._
[Illustration: signature of Otto von Bismarck]
"BERLIN,
"_July_, 1870."