第33章 CHAPTER IX.(2)

Before I proceed I will here give the reader a per-'trait of this Trenck.

He was a man of superior talents and unbounded ambition; devoted, even fanatically, to his sovereign; his boldness approached temerity; he was artful of mind, wicked of heart, vindictive and unfeeling. His cupidity equalled the utmost excess of avarice, even in his thirty-third year, in which he died. He was too proud to receive favours or obligations from any man, and was capable of ridding himself of his best friend if he thought he had any claims on his gratitude or could get possession of his fortune.

He knew I had rendered him very important services, supposed his cause already won, having bribed the judges, who were to revise the sentence, with thirty thousand florins, which money I received from his friend Baron Lopresti, and conveyed to these honest counsellors.

I knew all his secrets, and nothing more was necessary to prompt his suspicious and bad heart to seek my destruction.

Scarcely had a fortnight elapsed, after his having first betrayed me, before the following remarkable event happened.

I left him one evening to return home, taking under my coat a bag with papers and documents relating to the prosecution, which I had been examining for him, and transcribing. There were at this time about five-and-twenty officers in Vienna who had laid complaints against him, and who considered me as their greatest enemy because Ihad laboured earnestly in his defence. I was therefore obliged, on all occasions, to be upon my guard. A report had been propagated through Vienna that I was secretly sent by the King of Prussia to free my cousin from imprisonment; he, however, constantly denied, to the hour of his death, his ever having written to me at Berlin;hence also it will follow the letter I received had been forged by Jaschinsky.

Leaving the Arsenal, I crossed the court, and perceived I was closely followed by two men in grey roquelaures, who, pressing upon my heels, held loud and insolent conversation concerning the runaway Prussian Trenck. I found they sought a quarrel, which was a thing of no great difficulty at that moment, for a man is never more disposed to duelling than when he has nothing to lose, and is discontented with his condition. I supposed they were two of the accusing officers broken by Trenck, and endeavoured to avoid them, and gain the Jew's place.

Scarcely had I turned down the street that leads thither before they quickened their pace. I turned round, and in a moment received a thrust with a sword in the left side, where I had put my bag of papers, which accident alone saved my life; the sword pierced through the papers and slightly grazed the skin. I instantly drew, and the heroes ran. I pursued, one of them tripped and fell. Iseized him; the guard came up: he declared he was an officer of the regiment of Kollowrat, showed his uniform, was released, and I was taken to prison. The Town Major came the next day, and told me Ihad intentionally sought a quarrel with two officers, Lieutenants F-g and K-n. These kind gentlemen did not reveal their humane intention of sending me to the other world.

I was alone, could produce no witness, they were two. I must necessarily be in the wrong, and I remained six days in prison. No sooner was I released, than these my good friends sent to demand satisfaction for the said pretended insult. The proposal was accepted, and I promised to be at the Scotch gate, the place appointed by them, within an hour. Having heard their names, Ipresently knew them to be two famous swaggerers, who were daily exercising themselves in fencing at the Arsenal, and where they often visited Trenck. I went to my cousin to ask his assistance, related what had happened, and, as the consequences of this duel might be very serious, desired him to give me a hundred ducats, that I might be able to fly if either of them should fall.

Hitherto I had expended my own money on his account, and had asked no reimbursement; but what was my astonishment when this wicked man said to me, with a sneer, "Since, good cousin, you have got into a quarrel without consulting me, you will also get out of it without my aid!" As I left him, he called me back to tell me, "I will take care and pay your undertaker;" for he certainly believed I should never return alive.

I ran now, half-despairing, to Baron Lopresti, who gave me fifty ducats and a pair of pistols, provided with which I cheerfully repaired to the field of battle.

Here I found half a dozen officers of the garrison. As I had few acquaintances in Vienna, I had no second, except an old Spanish invalid captain, named Pereyra, who met me going in all haste, and, having learned whither, would not leave me.