No sooner was the office of T.O.Schroeter open, than in rushed Mr.Braun, the agent, and breathlessly related (not without a certain inward complacency, such as the possessor of the least agreeable news invariably betrays) that the whole of Poland and Galicia, as well as several border provinces, were in open insurrection, numerous quiet commercial travelers and peaceable officials surprised and murdered, and numerous towns set fire to.
This intelligence threw Anton into the greatest consternation, and with good cause.

A short time before, an enterprising Galician merchant had undertaken to dispatch an unusually large order to the firm; and, as is the custom of the country, he had already received the largest part of the sum due to him for it (nearly twenty thousand dollars) in other goods.

The wagons that were to bring the merchandise must now, Anton reckoned, be just in the heart of the disturbed district.

Moreover, another caravan, laden with colonial produce, and on its way to Galicia, must be on the very confines of the enemy's land.

And, what was still worse, a large portion of the business of the house, and of the credit granted it, was carried on in, and depended upon, this very part of the country.