Immediately the police were instructed to arrest Count St. Julien at the hotel "King of Portugal."An hour later the chief of the police came to say that the count had already been gone two hours. He repeated the account of the host, corroborated by the servants, of nine different counts having driven away from the hotel.
Herzberg smiled. "We have to deal with a very clever scoundrel,"said he, "and it is no other than the so-called Count Cagliostro, who was lately exposed as a bold trickster in Mittau and St.
Petersburg, and about whose arrest the Empress Catharine is very much exercised. It would be very agreeable to the king to show this little attention to her imperial highness, and trap the adroit pickpocket.""We might succeed in catching him in his flight," remarked the chief. "For the last six months the king has given orders that every passport should be examined at the gates, and the route of the travellers noted down, which is all registered and sent to the king.
It would be very easy to discover by which gate he departed, and his route, and then have him pursued.""That is well thought of, director; hasten to put it into execution, and inform us of the result." He returned in an hour to the minister's cabinet, shaking his head gravely. "Your excellency, it is very strange, but he is a wizard. This man has driven out of the nine gates at the same hour and minute."Herzberg laughed. "This is one of his tricks, and by it I recognize the great necromancer.""Your excellency, this is no trickery, but witchery. It is impossible for any one man to drive out of the nine gates at the same hour, in the same carriage, with two large black trunks and a postilion blowing the same melody, and provided with a correct passport, which he shows and is recognized as Count St. Julien, who is going to Paris by Hamburg. Here are the nine registers from the different gates, all the same, if I am not bewitched and do not read straight.""This trick does honor to the count," said Herzberg, smiling. "To-morrow you shall accompany me to Sans-Souci and read aloud the registers to the king. Do you think it will be impossible to pursue the count now?""I should be very happy to follow your excellency's judgment in this matter, and arrest the rascal in any way that you could point out,"said the director.
"I am convinced that he is in the city; and driving put of the nine gates at the same time was the best manner to escape being discovered," said Herzberg. "He is concealed in some one of the houses of the brothers, and we shall be obliged to let him escape this time."In order the more securely to carry out the initiation of Prince Frederick William, in company with Bischofswerder and Woellner, Cagliostro had arranged his pretended departure. For a long time the prince had expressed an extreme desire to be received into the mysteries of the miraculous and holy order, of which he had heard his friends speak with so much reverence. But he had been put off from time to time with regrets and shrugs of the shoulders, and expressions of the impossibility of granting the request.
"The spirits do not always appear even to the consecrated," said Bischofswerder. "They make themselves known after many fervent prayers and implorings, and when we have withdrawn from every one who could entice us to doubt or disbelief. I fear that it would be impossible to conjure the spirits of the departed, so long as your highness honors a certain lady with your particular favor, who ridicules the sublime order and mingles with its enemies. How can they appear to those who have just been in the company of a friend of the Illuminati and unbelievers?""The spirit-world only reveals itself to the virtuous and pure,"said Woellner, in a harsh, dry voice. "Its inhabitants cannot approach those who are not chaste and innocent, for sin and vice surround them with a thick fog, which keeps them at a distance from the clear atmosphere of the sublime. If you would call up the spirits, you must remove this woman who entices you from the path of virtue, and renders the sphere impure around you."Despite the warnings and the great wish the prince had to be received into the spirit-world, and become a member of the highest grade of the Rosicrucians, he could not resolve to forsake her who had been his friend for ten years, and who had borne shame and degradation on his account, refusing eligible and rich men rather than leave him and become a legitimate wife. Wilhelmine was the beloved of his youth, the mother of his two dear children, and she alone knew how to drive away the ennui which pursued the prince, with her amiable, subtle wit. Nay, he could not be so ungrateful, so heartless, as to reject her who had so tenderly loved him when young and beautiful, now that the first bloom of youth and beauty had faded!
Bischofswerder and Woellner recognized this difficulty, and applied themselves the more energetically for its removal. They supposed that the unexpected arrival of Cagliostro would very naturally appear to the prince as a special messenger, sent, without doubt, from the fathers, to accomplish his conversion. They announced to the prince that the Invisibles had taken pity upon his desire for knowledge, and had consented to permit him to gaze into the regions of the blest, although he wandered in the path of vice, and that he must hold himself in readiness to accompany the messenger whenever he should be sent to call him.