strangely enough. Amongst the prisoners
taken at Ancona I found an Irish fellow, who, it appears,
had taken service in the Piedmontese navy. He had been some
years in America and the West Indies, and from the scattered
remarks that he let fall, I perceived that he was a man of
shrewd and not over-scrupulous nature. He comprehended me in
an instant; and, although I was most guarded in giving my
instructions, the fellow read my intentions at once. This
shrewdness might, in other circumstances, have its
inconveniences, but here it gave me no alarm. I was the
means of his liberation, and were he troublesome, I could
consign him to the prison again,--to the galleys, if needed.
In company with this respectable ally, I set out for the
headquarters. On my arrival I waited on the Count von
Auersberg, in whose house the sick boy lay. This old man,
who is Irish by birth, is more Austrian in nature than the
members of the House of Hapsburg.

I found him fully convinced that the white-coated legions
had reconquered Lombardy by their own unaided valor, and I
left him in the same pleasant delusion. It appeared that a
certain Count von Walstein was enabled to clear young
Dalton's character from all taint of treason, by exhibiting,
in his own correspondence, some letters and documents that
related to the events detailed in Frank's writing, and of
which he could have had no possible knowledge. This avowal
may be a serious thing for Walstein, but rescues the young
Dalton at once, and proves that he was merely the writer of
Ravitzky's sentiments; so that here, again, Michel, he
escapes. Is not this more than strange?

"It was not without anxiety that I passed the threshold of
the sick-chamber; but happily it was darkened, and I soon
saw that the sick youth could never recognize me, were his
senses even unclouded. He lay motionless, and I thought
insensible; but after I spoke to him he rallied a little,
and asked after his father and his sisters. He had not yet
heard that his father was dead; and it was affecting to hear
the attempt he made to vindicate his honor, and show that he
had never been disloyal. By degrees I brought him to talk of
himself. He saw that he was dying, and had no fears of
death; but there seemed as if his conscience was b