It was very dark and raining slightly, but as I came within the circle of light of one of the street lamps the vigilant eye of the officer of the guard caught me, and he hailed, “Who goes there?” I did not reply, but, acting as if I did not hear, hurried to get directly under the lamp which was near, with a feeling that if the officer saw me there he would see that I was what I pretended to be, a stranger, and also with a feeling that I was safer at a distance if the challenge were followed by a bullet.  Under the lamp I stopped for the officer to come up.  I was not really frightened, but I cannot deny that I felt very nervous, as he came up, and, in an inquisitorial tone, asked, “What are you doing here?” I replied in German which was certainly comical and not a little shaky, for it was a fragmentary remembrance of the German read in my early college course, and never since revived, that “I was doing nothing—­that I was a strangers” (ich bin ein Fremden), and had come out to see the effects on the river, pointing to the glimmering lights; but, fortunately, my German was so funny that he burst out laughing, and after a “sehr schoen, sehr schoen,” as I had said “strangers” in the plural, he replied, “When you are a strangers you must stay in the house,” and gave me friendly directions as to how to get back to my hotel without falling in with the police, “who wouldn’t let you off as I have.”  I was fortunate enough to arrive without any further notice.  The officers of the army hated to do police service, and my inquisitor was no doubt glad not to pass me into the custody of the police.  I have always wished to know the name of my protector, for such he was.

I remained in Pesth over a month, exciting an increasing attention and being unable to account for a further delay, as I was doing nothing, not even sketching, which, in the vicinity of a fortress, would have been the surest way of inviting arrest.  I profited by the acquaintance of Dr. Orzovensky’s family to pass the time agreeably, and, finally, being unable to extort by post further instructions from Kossuth, or explanations in reply to two urgent letters describing the position I was in, and being unable to give any reason for a longer stay, or to find the people I was sent to, I determined to go back to London and start again with fuller oral instructions and a better understanding of the difficulties.  I went to Orzovensky and frankly told him my errand, and asked him if I might leave the dispatches in some place known to him, so that he could indicate to some other person, should my mission be taken up by another, where they were to be found.  He burst out on me with violence, accusing me of endangering his family as well as himself, and assuring me that if the slightest suspicion of my mission should transpire they would all be thrown into prison, and he be ruined, refusing to have anything to do or say about the dispatches, and breaking off all communications with me on the spot.