However, things never go as you intend, even in European revolutions. My third night on the road I came down with a raging fever—fiery throat, belly pumping, and my head throbbing like a steam engine. I suppose it was sure to happen, after being immersed in icy water twice in one night, taking a wound, and being three parts drowned—to say nothing of the nervous damage I had suffered into the bargain. I had just enough strength to stumble out of the copse where I’d been lying up, and by sheer good luck come on a hut not far away. I pounded on the door, and the old folk let me in, and all I remember is their scared faces and myself staggering to a truckle bed, kicking my precious valise underneath, and then collapsing. I was there for the best part of a week, so near as I know, and if they were brave enough to peep into my bag while I was unconscious—which I doubt—they were too frightened to do anything about it.

They were simple, decent peasants, and as I discovered when I was well enough to sit up, went in some awe of me. Of course they could guess from my cut that I wasn’t any common hobble-dehoy; they hovered round me, and I suppose the old woman did a fair job of nursing me, and all told I counted myself lucky to have come upon them. They fed me as well as they could, which was damned badly, but the old chap managed to look after my horse, so that eventually I was able to take the road again in some sort of order, though still a trifle shaky.

I gave them a nicely-calculated payment for their trouble—too little or too much might have had them gossiping—and set out southward again. I was within a day’s ride of Magdeburg, but having lost so much time by my sickness I was in a nervous sweat in case a hue and cry should have run ahead of me. However, no one paid me any heed on the road, and I came to Magdeburg safely, abandoned my horse (if I knew anything it would soon find an owner, but I didn’t dare try to sell it), and took a train southward.

There was a shock for me at the station, though. Magdeburg had been one of the earliest cities in Germany to have the railway, but even so the sum of thalers they took for my fare left me barely enough to keep myself in food during the journey. I cursed myself for not trying to realise something on my horse, but it was too late now, so I was carried south with a fortune in jewels in my valise and hardly the price of a shave in my pocket.