thought, and found yourself only before the walls; you "reentered" it at
every possible angle; you did everything apparently but pass through it.
You thought yourself well out of it, and were stopped by a bastion. Its
circumvallations haunted you until you came to the next station. It had
pressed even the current of the river into its defensive service. There
were secrets of its foundations and mines that only the highest military
despots knew and kept to themselves. In a word--it was impregnable.

That such a place could not be trifled with or misunderstood in its
right-and-acute-angled severities seemed plain to every one. But set on
by his companions, who were showing him its defensive foundations, or
in his own idle curiosity, Karl managed to fall into the Rhine and was
fished out with difficulty. The immersion may have chilled his military
ardor or soured his good humor, for later the consul heard that he had
visited the American consular agent at an adjacent town with the old
story of his American citizenship. "He seemed," said the consul's
colleague, "to be well posted about American railways and American
towns, but he had no papers. He lounged around the office for a while
and"--

"Wrote letters home?" suggested the consul, with a flash of
reminiscence.

"Yes, the poor chap had no privacy at the barracks, and I reckon was
overlooked or bedeviled."

This was the last the consul heard of Karl Schwartz directly; for a
week or two later he again fell into the Rhine, this time so fatally and
effectually that in spite of the efforts of his companions he was swept
away by the rapid current, and thus ended his service to his country.