is he here?"

"A refugee. His sentence to be shot was commuted to imprisonment for
life. He made his escape from Spandau, and came here."

"What was his crime?"

"Treachery,--the very basest one can well conceive; he commanded the
fort of Bergstein, which the French attacked on their advance in the
second Austrian campaign. The assailants had no heavy artillery, nor
any material for escalade; but they had money, and gold proved a
better battering-train than lead. Plittersdorf--that's the general's
name--fired over their heads till he had expended all his ammunition,
and then surrendered, with the garrison, as prisoners of war. The
French, however, exchanged him afterwards, and he very nearly paid the
penalty of his false faith."

"And now is he shunned,--do people avoid him?"

"How should they? How many here are privileged to look down on a
traitor? Is it the runaway merchant, the defaulting bank clerk, the
filching commissary, that can say shame to one whose crime stands higher
in the scale of offence? The best we can know of any one here is, that
his rascality took an aspiring turn; and yet there are some fellows
one would not like to think ill of. Here comes one such; and as I have
something like business to treat of with him, I 'll ask you to wait for
me, on this bench, till I join you."

Without waiting for any reply, Cashel hastened forward, and taking off
his hat, saluted a sallow-looking man of some eight-and-forty or fifty
years of age, who, in a loose morning-gown, and with a book in his hand,
was strolling along in one of the alleys.

"Ha, lieutenant," said the other, as, lifting up his eyes, he recognized
Cashel,--"making the most of these short hours of pleasure, eh? You 've
heard the news, I suppose; we shall be soon afloat again."

"So I've heard, captain!" replied Cashel; "but I believe we have taken
our last cruise together."

"How so, lad? _You_ look well, and in spirits; and as for myself, I
never felt in better humor than to try a bout with our friends on the
western coast."

"You have no friend, captain, can better like to hear you say so; and as
for me, the chances of fortune have changed. I have discovered that I
need neither risk head nor limbs for gold; a worthy man has arrived here
to-day with tidings that I am the owner of a large estate, and more
money than I shall well know how to squander, and so--"

"And so you 'll leave us for the land where men have learned that art?
Quite