fe," I answered, "to run as few risks as
possible."

"I hardly know if we have the right to ask you to undertake such a
hair-brained enterprise," she said again.

"I have not waited to be asked, Lady Rollinson. I am a volunteer."

"Give us at least a hint of what you propose to do," urged her ladyship.
"Let us be sure that you do not intend to run into danger."

"It would be futile to plan until I am on the spot," I answered; "and as
for danger--I shall meet nothing I can avoid."

"I shall trust Captain Fyffe entirely," said Miss Rossano. "As for
money, Captain Fyffe," she added, turning to me, "you must not be
cramped in that respect. Will you call and see my bankers to-morrow?"

"I should prefer," I answered, "to start to-night. I have ample funds
for my immediate purposes, and I shall make my way, in the first place,
to Vienna. Tell me your banker's name, and I will find out his agents
there. And now good-bye, Miss Rossano. I cannot promise success, but I
will do what I can."

She answered that she was sure of that; and when she had given me the
name of her bankers and I had made a note of it, we shook hands and
parted. For my own part I was glad that Lady Rollinson's presence made
our parting commonplace.

I hailed the first hackney carriage I met and drove to my rooms. There
I found my passport, and went with it to the Foreign Office, where,
through the good offices of an old schoolfellow, I had it _vised_
without loss of time, and then home again to pack. Travelling was slower
then than it is to-day, but we thought it mighty rapid, and scarcely to
be improved upon, it differed so from the post-chaise and stage-coach
crawl of a few years before. There was no direct correspondence between
Hamburgh and Vienna, but the journey was shorter by a day than it had
been when I had last made it. I reached the Austrian capital after an
entirely adventureless journey, and felt that my enterprise was begun.

I called at the Embassy, and had my papers finally put in order. I
called on the Viennese agents of Miss Rossano's bankers, and found that
no less a sum than one thousand pounds had been placed to my credit. Not
only was this liberal provision made for contingencies, but I received
a letter from Miss Rossano telling me that anything within her means was
fully at my disposal. I thought it not unlikely that with so persuasive
a sum behind me I might be able to win over the kindly jailer to our
side. My thoughts were