It might be interesting to narrate in detail the experiences of L’Estrange in the fulfilment of this commission: how from Galatz he visited Lemberg, from Lemberg went on to Warsaw, from Warsaw to Cracow, thence into the chief cities of Hungary, from the Marchfeldt to Vienna, thence into Croatia and Dalmatia, from Trieste to Prague, from Prague through Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, into the teeming operative and mining regions of Westphalia and the more southern Rhine provinces; from Alsace to Lyons and thereabouts, through Paris into Belgium, and so, after the lapse of some months from his parting with Oronzha at Port Said, to the house in a court in Soho which Oronzha had designated as a rendezvous. Met here by this _dégagé_-seeming man of many subtle plots, he was bidden, as the best method of furthering the cause, to enlist in that crack English cavalry regiment the Scarlet Hussars, then quartered at Hounslow, with instructions covertly and cautiously to aim at subverting the loyalty of the troopers of that regiment, and to labour to instil mutinous tendencies by dwelling on the materialistically pleasant results, to the appreciation of the private soldier grumbling at scant rations and poor pay, of a fine free-and-easy _régime_ of lawlessness and unlimited drink. CHAPTER II L’Estrange was quite a success in his new character as a Scarlet Hussar. At first, it is true, he incurred suspicion. When, at his first essay in the riding-school, he rode with “stirrups up,” as if he were “demi-corporate with the brave beast”; and when, at his first dismounted drill, he cut the sword exercise with more grace and precision than did the old ranker adjutant himself, his troop sergeant-major promptly set him down as a deserter. That conviction L’Estrange summarily dispelled by confidentially informing the honest old non-com., with the little compliment of a five-pound note, that he had been an officer in the Bengal Cavalry who had come to grief, and that he had enlisted in an assumed name with intent to work up for a commission. Of course the troop sergeant-major divulged this confidence to the regimental, the regimental told it to the adjutant, and soon every officer in the regiment knew it, and L’Estrange’s lines fell in pleasant places. Grim old Sabretasche, the chief, dropped him a bluffly curt word of encouragement. Lord Ebor, the captain of his troop, his courteous and kindly nature moving him, spoke to him as an equal, and expressed the hope that before long he might see him “in the blue coat.” In four months from the day of his enlistment L’Estrange was full corporal; in four months more he was a lance-sergeant.