No sooner was
the coast clear than the street-door opened, and my stranger was
joined by a mantled form, that glided into Poll's emporium. The
new-comer doffed a swart sombrero, and disclosed historic features
that were not unknown to the concealed observer--meaning me. Yes,
David, that aquiline beak, that long and waxed moustache, that
impassible mask of a face, I had seen them, Sir, conspicuous
(though their owner be of alien and even hostile birth) among
England's special chivalry. The foremost he had charged on the
Ides of April (I mean against the ungentlemanly Chartist throng)
and in the storied lists of Eglinton. The new-comer, in short, was
the nephew of him who ate his heart out in an English gaol (like
our illustrious Chiv)--in fact, he was Prince Louis N- B-.
Gliding to the seat where, half-lathered, the more or less ancient
Mariner awaited Poll's return, the Prince muttered (in the French
lingo, familiar to me from long exile in Boulogne):
"Hist, goes all well?"
"Magnificently, Sire!" says the other chap.
"Our passages taken?"
"Ay, and private cabins paid for to boot, in case of the storm's
inclemency."
The Prince nodded and seemed pleased; then he asked anxiously,
"The Bird? You have been to Jamrach's?"
"Pardon me, Sire," says the man who was waiting to be shaved, "I
can slip from your jesses no mercenary eagle. These limbs have yet
the pith to climb and this heart the daring to venture to the
airiest crag of Monte d'Oro, and I have ravished from his eyrie a
true Corsican eagle to be the omen of our expedition.
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