His bold leap
into the swift Seine, his rescue by a passing river steamer, on which,
thanks to a plausible tale, in which he explained away the slight
flesh-wound he had received from the gendarme's pistol, he found
employment as a stoker, and so got to Rouen, thence to Havre and the
sea.
Willingly he would never have returned to the place where he had so
nearly fallen a victim. But he was impelled by a stern sense of duty;
he came now as an avenging spirit to unmask and punish those who had
plotted against him and his friend--unscrupulous miscreants who were a
curse to the world.
He took up his quarters in a large new hotel upon the Boulevards.
Paris had changed greatly in these years. The Second Empire, with its
swarm of hastily-enriched adventurers, had already done much to
beautify and improve the city. Life was more than ever gay in this the
chief home of pleasure-seekers. Luxury of the showiest kind everywhere
in the ascendant; smart equipages and gaily-dressed crowds, the
shop-fronts glittering with artistic treasures, everyone outwardly
happy, and leading a careless, joyous existence.
Englishmen, officers especially, were just now welcome guests in
Paris. Mr. Hyde, of the Royal Picts, as he entered himself upon the
hotel register, with his soldierly air, his Crimean beard, and his arm
in a sling, attracted general attention.
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