class="medium reference internal" href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@40137@[email protected]#nearly-captured">NEARLY CAPTURED

THE RED, WHITE, AND GREEN.

CHAPTER I.

WILL THE REGIMENT MARCH?

"Cowardly rats, deserting a sinking ship!" exclaimed my brother Stephen; "I would not raise my little finger to help them!"

"It seems to me this insurrection will do good to our cause."

Stephen pushed his chair back from the breakfast-table, and stood up.

"We are Hungarians," said he, "and we fight for our nation. We want no assistance from these Austrian rebels. If they care a kreuzer for their country, why don't they rally round the emperor?"

Laughing at Stephen's expression of disgust, I crossed the room to the little window, and looked into the street.

It was the morning of October 5, 1848, and still fairly early, yet the people of Vienna were pouring by in hundreds, all eager, restless, and apparently too excited to think of such an ordinary thing as breakfast.

Some were mere lads, pale-faced and spectacled, but armed with sword and pistol, and looking very resolute; these were students from the public schools and universities. Mingling with these enthusiastic youths were a few shopkeepers, a more considerable body of respectably-dressed artisans, numbers of National Guards in uniform, and, most significant of all, the men from the slums--bare-headed, dirty, gaunt, but carrying knives, hatchets, clubs, and other death-dealing weapons.

Thus far, this year of 1848 had produced most remarkable changes throughout Europe.

Louis Philippe, King of the French, had been driven into exile; Sicily had revolted against King Bomba; insurrections had arisen at Madrid; the whole of Germany had been, and was, in a state of turmoil; the Prussians had conquered Poland afresh.

Thrones had crumbled into dust, and monarchs and rulers had been swept away like chaff before the wrath of the people.

But of all the European countries, none in this wild gale of popular fury was so severely tried as the proud empire of Austria.

In northern Italy, the veteran Radetzky was upholding the black and yellow flag of Austria against a host of insurgents; in Bohemia, the Slavs, bent on founding a great Slav nation, were suppressed with difficulty by the Austrian general, Prince Windischgratz; my own gallant land of Hungary had drawn the sword to win back the ancient rights of which it had been deprived by the Viennese government; while here at Vienna, in the very heart of the empire, thousands of men were working their hardest to overthrow their own Kaiser.

With these people neither Stephen nor I had the least sympathy. We were Hungarians, but royalists, loving our country with a fond and faithful affection, yet wishful to preserve our loyalty to the emperor-king.

News of the dispute between Hungary and Austria had reached us in London, and we had just arrived at Vienna on our homeward journey.

My brother Stephen was eighteen years of age, and my senior by twelve months.

In figure he was tall and elegant; his face was regularly oval, with a pale complexion; his forehead was high and broad, his mouth small and well formed. His black hair fell in long curls almost to his shoulders; he wore a black moustache in the Hungarian fashion; and his eyes were dark and fiery.

A true Magyar, every inch of him, he might have stood beside King Stephen of glorious memory.

He came to join me at the little window, and we were still gazing intently at the throngs below, when some one, hurrying up the stairway, knocked at the door.

"Come in!" I cried, and turning round added hastily, "Why, it is Rakoczy, looking as miserable as a caged bird! Are the folks too busy demonstrating to get you some breakfast?"

The newcomer closed and locked the door, and came over to us.

John Rakoczy, or "John the Joyous," as we called him, was, like ourselves, a Hungarian, though there was a slight