Both were to their time.  The sailor said, “Give me some money,” and handed him a yellow paper; the clock struck; the barrier was opened, and, like a dream, he was safely on the ocean.

From Riga he went through Courland and Lithuania.  The difficulty of crossing the Russian frontier into Prussia was still to be managed.  He chose the daytime; and when sentinels had each turned their backs, he jumped over the wall of the first of the three glacis.  No noise was heard.  The second was tried, and the firing of pistols showed that he was perceived.  He rushed on to the third, and, breathless and exhausted, gained a little wood, where for many hours he remained concealed.  He was in Prussia.  Wandering on through Mernel, Tilsit, and Konigsberg, he decided at the last place to take a ship the next morning to Elbing, where he would be near to Posen, and among his compatriots.  Sitting down on a heap of stones, he intended taking refuge for the night in a corn-field; but sleep overcame him, and he was rudely awakened in the darkness by a policeman.  His stammering and confused replies awakened suspicion, and to his shame and grief, he was carried off to prison.  He announced himself as a French cotton-spinner, but returning from Russia, and without a passport.  Not a word he said was believed.  At length, after a month’s detention, weary of being considered a concealed malefactor, he asked to speak to M. Fleury, a French advocate, who assisted at his trial.  To him he confessed the whole truth.  Nothing could equal his advocate’s consternation and astonishment.

“What a misfortune!” he said.  “We must give you up to the Russians; they have just sent many of your countrymen, across the frontier.  There is but one way.  Write to Count Eulenberg; tell your story, and trust to his mercy.”

After ten days he received a vague reply, desiring him to have patience.  The affair got wind in the town, and a gentleman came to him, asking if he would accept him as bail.  Efforts had been made in his favor, and the police were ready to set him free.  M. Kamke, his kind friend, took him home, and entertained him for a week; but an order came from Berlin to send the prisoner back to Russia, and he received warning in time to escape.  Letters to various friends on the way were given him, to facilitate his journey; and just four years after he had left Paris he reached it in safety again, after having crossed the Urals, slept for months in the snow, jumped over the Russian frontier in the midst of balls, and passed through so many sufferings and privations.

[Illustration:  TAIL PIECE]

CHAPTER XXXVIII.