"Has he any special spite in that quarter?"
"He has been intriguing so long in Austria and Lombardy, that now he could not show his face there a moment without being arrested. So he is living here, where he keeps very quiet at present, for fear of consequences."
"No; he's of no nation at all. He belongs to a sort of mongrel breed, from the Rock of Gibraltar,--a cross of half the nations in Europe. They go by the name of Rock Scorpions. Speyer is a compound of German, Spanish, English, French, Genoese, and Moorish, and the result is the greatest rascal that ever went unhung. Still you ought to know him; he is a curiosity,--one of the men of the times. If you want to know the secret springs of the revolution that all the newspapers will be full of not many years from this, why, Speyer is one of them."
"But is there not some risk in being in communication with such a man?"
"Yes, if one isn't cautious. But, as I'll manage it, it will be perfectly safe."
Vinal, though morbidly timorous as respected peril to life or limb, was not wholly deficient in the courage of the intriguer--a quality quite distinct from the courage of the soldier. Any thing which promised to show him human nature under a new aspect, or disclose to him a hidden spring of human action, had a resistless attraction in his eyes. He therefore assented to Richards's proposal, and promised that, at some more auspicious time, he would go with him to the patriot's lodging.
Those travelled youths whom tender mothers wean And send abroad to see and to be seen, Have made all Europe's vices so well known, They seem almost as natural as our own.--_Churchill_.
On the next morning, Vinal, Morton, and two other young Americans were seated together in the coffee room at Meurice's. They were discussing plans of travel.
"Then you don't intend to stay long in Paris," said one of the strangers to Morton.
"Not at present. I shall set out in a few days for Vienna, and then go down the Danube."
"That's an original idea. What will you find there worth seeing?"
"It's a fancy of mine. There is no place in Europe where one can see such a conglomerate of nations and races as in the provinces along the Danube. I like to see the human animal in all his varieties,--that's my specialty."