Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/215

 having arrived, I had to my shame to confess that the tale was not true. I was nervously eager to wash out the disgrace of the night before, and to try the utmost for our cause, even under the most unfavorable circumstances. But it was all in vain. The evening came, the crowds dispersed, and I had at last to make up my mind that the people we had before us could not be moved to do anything desperate. Meyer and I resolved to go where there was fighting in prospect, and set out for Elberfeld. We reached that town the next day.

There we found barricades on the streets, much noise in the taverns, only a small number of armed men, and no discipline nor united leadership. Evidently here was no chance of success. Nothing could come of this, except perhaps a hopeless fight or a speedy capitulation. Meyer and I resolved therefore to go to the Palatinate. Soon we were on board a steamboat running up the Rhine. I wrote home asking my parents to send me some necessary things to our friend Nathan at Sanct Goarshausen, and on the evening of the same day we arrived under his hospitable roof in the shadow of the Loreley-rock.

There I had my first quiet hours after the terrible excitement of the last four days. When I awoke from profound sleep all that had happened appeared to me like a dismal dream, and then again as a clear, more dismal reality. The thought struck me for the first time that now, although safe enough for the time being in Nathan's house, I was a fugitive, running away from the authorities; it was certain that they would not permit an attempt upon one of their armories to pass unpunished. This was a singularly uncomfortable feeling; but a much more hideous thought followed—that I could not be proud of the act to which I owed my outlawry, although its purpose had been patriotic. The outcome had been