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Show 56 PERSONAL ADVENTURES about the ship, but my companions, whose libations had awakened their spirit of mischief, vowed they would not return until they had had some fun ; to which O'Reilly added, " And a thrifle of a scrimmage, just to keep our hands in." Remonstrances were useless, and flight impracticable, for I was safely secured on each side, and I resigned myself to Iny fate, which I anticipated would soon be incarceration with the lazzaroni. In this mood, we can1e upon the "Plaza," at the lower end of which we espied the carriage of the Emperor, drawn up in front of one of the large houses, and around it several of our comrades standing admiringly. A shout of glee, simultaneous with the recognition, rang through the square, and then a council was held to determine what mischievous froJic we should perpetrate. O'Reilly cast a side-look at the unoccupied carriage, at the stately coachman on the box, and at the magnificently liveried domestics who were chatting lazily in the doorway. He said something to Judson, who whispered it to a second, and both proceeded very leisurely to • IN CALIFORNIA. 57 mount on the box. At the same moment, O'Reilly seized me by the arm, and, opening the carriage-door, pushed me headlong in, tumbling over my heels as he followed me, and calling out to our companions to make haste after us, as there was plenty of roorn. No guards were near, and the servants appeared to be taken so much by surprise at the boldness of this absurd prank, that they had not tirne to prevent us from thus committing ourselves, or perhaps were deterred by our determined aspect from at tern pting it. Under the pressure of a naked bayonet on each side of him, the coachman whipped his horses, and 've dashed off at full speed, up one street, down another, and across a third, at the imminent risk of "a spill" at every corner, and to the wonderment of the good citizens of Rio, who had never before seen his Imperial Majesty's family in such a hurry to go nowhere. But this state of things could not continue, and we \Vere soon warned of an approaching climax, by the shouts of the crowd, now in hot pursuit of us, and by the turning out of the D5 |