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wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

lay

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wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

france!--body

How many times the word 'france!--body' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

come

How many times the word 'come' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

holbein

How many times the word 'holbein' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

sheep's

How many times the word 'sheep's' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

taught

How many times the word 'taught' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

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wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

cheyne

How many times the word 'cheyne' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

included

How many times the word 'included' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

historians

How many times the word 'historians' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

stacks

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wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

showing

How many times the word 'showing' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

grey

How many times the word 'grey' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

then

How many times the word 'then' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

likened

How many times the word 'likened' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

din

How many times the word 'din' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

fighting

How many times the word 'fighting' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

jenny

How many times the word 'jenny' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

capital

How many times the word 'capital' appears in the text?

wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots, and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months behind-hand. There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie, and answered in a pettish tone, Wow, George, man, what needs aw this din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me; and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine. Heriot laughed, and replied, Well, David, I see a demand of money is like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble young countryman, the Lord of Glenvarloch? The young Lord of Glenvarloch! said the old mechanist; wi' aw my heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is a sweet youth. That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are, answered the goldsmith. A sweet youth he would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is his son, the Lord Nigel. His son! said Ramsay; maybe he will want something of a chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-days. He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for what I know, said his friend; but, David, remember your bond, and use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon. She had the more credit by her cookery, answered David, now fully awake; a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our saying. Well, answered Master George, but as there will be no sheep's-head to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a proverb cannot mend. It may be you may forgather with your friend, Sir Mungo Malagrowther, for I purpose to ask his worship; so, be sure and bide tryste, Davie. That will I--I will be true as a chronometer, said Ramsay. I will not trust you, though, replied Heriot.-- Hear you, Jenkin boy, tell Scots Janet to tell pretty Mistress Margaret, my god-child, she must put her father in remembrance to put on his best doublet to-morrow, and to bring him to Lombard Street at noon. Tell her they are to meet a brave young Scots lord. Jenkin coughed that sort of dry short cough uttered by those who are either charged with errands which they do not like, or hear opinions to which they must not enter a dissent. Umph! repeated Master George--who, as we have already noticed, was something of a martinet in domestic discipline-- what does _umph_ mean? Will you do mine errand or not, sirrah? Sure, Master George Heriot, said the apprentice, touching his cap, I only meant, that Mistress Margaret was not likely to forget such an invitation. Why, no, said Master George; she is a dutiful girl to her god-father, though I sometimes call her a jill-flirt.--And, hark ye, Jenkin, you and your comrade had best come with your clubs, to see your master and her safely home; but first shut shop, and loose the bull-dog, and let the porter stay in the fore-shop till your return. I will send two of my knaves with you; for I hear these wild youngsters of the Temple are broken out worse and lighter than ever. We can keep their steel in order with good handbats, said Jenkin; and never trouble your servants for the matter. Or, if need be, said Tunstall, we have swords as well as the Templars. Fie upon it--fie upon it, young man, said the citizen;-- An apprentice with a sword!--Marry, heaven forefend! I would as soon see him in a hat and feather. Well, sir, said Jenkin-- we will find arms fitting to our station, and will defend our master and his daughter, if we should tear up the very stones of the pavement. There spoke a London 'prentice bold, said the citizen; and, for your comfort, my lads, you shall crush a cup of wine to the health of the Fathers of the City. I have my eye on both of you--you are thriving lads, each in his own way.--God be wi' you, Davie. Forget not to-morrow at noon. And, so saying, he again turned his mule's head westward, and crossed Temple Bar, at that slow and decent amble, which at once became his rank and civic importance, and put his pedestrian followers to no inconvenience to keep up with him. At the Temple gate he again paused, dismounted, and sought his way into one of the small booths occupied by scriveners in the neighbourhood. A young man, with lank smooth hair combed straight to his ears, and then cropped short, rose, with a cringing reverence, pulled off a slouched hat, which he would upon no signal replace on his head, and answered with much demonstration of reverence, to the goldsmith's question of, How goes business, Andrew? -- Aw the better for your worship's kind countenance and maintenance. Get a large sheet of paper, man, and make a new pen, with a sharp neb, and fine hair-stroke. Do not slit the quill up too high, it's a wastrife course in your trade, Andrew--they that do not mind corn-pickles, never come to forpits. I have known a learned man write a thousand pages with one quill. [Footnote: A biblical commentary by Gill, which (if the author's memory serves him) occupies between five and six hundred printed quarto pages, and must therefore have filled more pages of manuscript than the number mentioned in the text, has this quatrain at the end of the volume-- With one good pen I wrote this book, Made of a grey goose quill; A pen it was when it I took, And a pen I leave it still. ] Ah! sir, said the lad, who listened to the goldsmith, though instructing him in his own trade, with an air of veneration and acquiescence, how sune ony puir creature like mysell may rise in the world, wi' the instruction of such a man as your worship! My instructions are few, Andrew, soon told, and not hard to practise. Be honest--be industrious--be frugal--and you will soon win wealth and worship.--Here, copy me this Supplication in your best and most formal hand. I will wait by you till it is done. The youth lifted not his eye from the paper, and laid not the pen from his hand, until the task was finished to his employer's satisfaction. The citizen then gave the young scrivener an angel; and bidding him, on his life, be secret in all business intrusted to him, again mounted his mule, and rode on westward along the Strand. It may be worth while to remind our readers, that the Temple Bar which Heriot passed, was not the arched screen, or gateway, of the present day; but an open railing, or palisade, which, at night, and in times of alarm, was closed with a barricade of posts and chains. The Strand also, along which he rode, was not, as now, a continued street, although it was beginning already to assume that character. It still might be considered as an open road, along the south side of which stood various houses and hotels belonging to the nobility, having gardens behind them down to the water-side, with stairs to the river, for the convenience of taking boat; which mansions have bequeathed the names of their lordly owners to many of the streets leading from the Strand to the Thames. The north side of the Strand was also a long line of houses, behind which, as in Saint Martin's Lane, and other points, buildings, were rapidly arising; but Covent Garden was still a garden, in the literal sense of the word, or at least but beginning to be studded with irregular buildings. All that was passing around, however, marked the rapid increase of a capital which had long enjoyed peace, wealth, and a regular government. Houses were rising in every direction; and the shrewd eye of our citizen already saw the period not distant, which should convert the nearly open highway on which he travelled, into a connected and regular street, uniting the Court and the town with the city of London. He next passed Charing Cross, which was no longer the pleasant solitary village at which the judges were wont to breakfast on their way to Westminster Hall, but began to resemble the artery through which, to use Johnson's expression pours the full tide of London population. The buildings were rapidly increasing, yet certainly gave not even a faint idea of its present appearance. At last Whitehall received our traveller, who passed under one of the beautiful gates designed by Holbein, and composed of tesselated brick-work, being the same to which Moniplies had profanely likened the West-Port of Edinburgh, and entered the ample precincts of the palace of Whitehall, now full of all the confusion attending improvement. It was just at the time when James,--little suspecting that he was employed in constructing a palace, from the window of which his only son was to pass in order that he might die upon a scaffold before it,--was busied in removing the ancient and ruinous buildings of De Burgh, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, to make way for the superb architecture on which Inigo Jones exerted all his genius. The king, ignorant of futurity, was now engaged in pressing on his work; and, for that purpose, still maintained his royal apartments at Whitehall, amidst the rubbish of old buildings, and the various confusion attending the erection of the new pile, which formed at present a labyrinth not easily traversed. The goldsmith to the Royal Household, and who, if fame spoke true, oftentimes acted as their banker,--for these professions were not as yet separated from each other,--was a person of too much importance to receive the slightest interruption from sentinel or porter; and, leaving his mule and two of his followers in the outer-court, he gently knocked at a postern-gate of the building, and was presently admitted, while the most trusty of his attendants followed him closely, with the piece of plate under his arm. This man also he left behind him in an ante-room,--where three or four pages in the royal livery, but untrussed, unbuttoned, and dressed more carelessly than the place, and nearness to a king's person, seemed to admit, were playing at dice and draughts, or stretched upon benches, and slumbering with half-shut eyes. A corresponding gallery, which opened from the ante-room, was occupied by two gentlemen-ushers of the chamber, who gave each a smile of recognition as the wealthy goldsmith entered. No word was spoken on either side; but one of the ushers looked first to Heriot, and then to a little door half-covered by the tapestry, which seemed to say, as plain as a look could, Lies your business that way? The citizen nodded; and the court-attendant, moving on tiptoe, and with as much caution as if the floor had been paved with eggs, advanced to the door, opened it gently, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The broad Scottish accent of King James was heard in reply,-- Admit him instanter, Maxwell. Have you hairboured sae lang at the Court, and not learned, that gold and silver are ever welcome? The usher signed to Heriot to advance, and the honest citizen was presently introduced into the cabinet of the Sovereign. The scene of confusion amid which he found the king seated, was no bad picture of the state and quality of James's own mind. There was much that was rich and costly in cabinet pictures and valuable ornaments; but they were arranged in a slovenly manner, covered with dust, and lost half their value, or at least their effect, from the manner in which they were presented to the eye. The table was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on king-craft, were mingled miserable roundels and ballads by the Royal 'Prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of Europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness. The king's dress was of green velvet, quilted so full as to be dagger-proof--which gave him the appearance of clumsy and ungainly protuberance; while its being buttoned awry, communicated to his figure an air of distortion. Over his green doublet he wore a sad-coloured nightgown, out of the pocket of which peeped his hunting-horn. His high-crowned grey hat lay on the floor, covered with dust, but encircled by a carcanet of large balas rubies; and he wore a blue velvet nightcap, in the front of which was placed the plume of a heron, which had been struck down by a favourite hawk in some critical moment of the flight, in remembrance of which the king wore this highly honoured feather. But such inconsistencies in dress and appointments were mere outward types of those which existed in the royal character, rendering it a subject of doubt amongst his contemporaries, and bequeathing it as a problem to future historians. He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and one who feared war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not see. In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully--that he was the wisest fool in Christendom. That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of apiece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stewarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne; and, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war. Such was the monarch, who, saluting Heriot by the name of Jingling Geordie, (for it was his well-known custom to give nicknames to all those with whom he was on terms of familiarity,) inquired what new clatter-traps he had brought with him, to cheat his lawful and native Prince out of his siller. God forbid, my liege, said the citizen, that I should have any such disloyal purpose. I did but bring a piece of plate to show to your most gracious Majesty, which, both for the subject and for the workmanship, I were loath to put into the hands of any subject until I knew your Majesty's pleasure anent it. Body o' me, man, let's see it, Heriot; though, by my saul, Steenie's service o' plate was sae dear a bargain, I had 'maist pawned my word as a Royal King, to keep my ain gold and silver in future, and let you, Geordie, keep yours. Respecting the Duke of Buckingham's plate, said the goldsmith, your Majesty was pleased to direct that no expense should be spared, and-- What signifies what I desired, man? when a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e'en play at the chucks. But you should have had mair sense and consideration than to gie Babie Charles and Steenie their ain gate; they wad hae floored the very rooms wi' silver, and I wonder they didna. George Heriot bowed, and said no more. He knew his master too well to vindicate himself otherwise than by a distant allusion to his order; and James, with whom economy was only a transient and momentary twinge of conscience, became immediately afterwards desirous to see the piece of plate which the goldsmith proposed to exhibit, and dispatched Maxwell to bring it to his presence. In the meantime he demanded of the citizen whence he had procured it. From Italy, may it please your Majesty, replied Heriot. It has naething in it tending to papistrie? said the king, looking graver than his wont. Surely not, please your Majesty, said Heriot; I were not wise to bring any thing to your presence that had the mark of the beast. You would be the mair beast yourself to do so, said the king; it is weel kend that I wrestled wi' Dagon in my youth, and smote him on the groundsill of his own temple; a gude evidence that I should be in time called, however unworthy, the Defender of the Faith.--But here comes Maxwell, bending under his burden, like the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Heriot hastened to relieve the usher, and to place the embossed salver, for such it was, and of extraordinary dimensions, in a light favourable for his Majesty's viewing the sculpture. Saul of my body, man, said the king, it is a curious piece, and, as I think, fit for a king's chalmer; and the subject, as you say, Master George, vera adequate and beseeming--being, as I see, the judgment of Solomon--a prince in whose paths it weel becomes a' leeving monarchs to walk with emulation. But whose footsteps, said Maxwell, only one of them--if a subject may say so much--hath ever overtaken. Haud your tongue for a fause fleeching loon! said the king, but with a smile on his face that showed the flattery had done its part. Look at the bonny piece of workmanship, and haud your clavering tongue.--And whase handiwork may it be, Geordie? It was wrought, sir, replied the goldsmith, by the famous Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, and designed for Francis the First of France; but I hope it will find a fitter master. Francis of France! said the king; send Solomon, King of the Jews, to Francis of France!--Body of me, man, it would have kythed Cellini mad, had he never done ony thing else out of the gate. Francis!--why, he was a fighting fule, man,--a mere fighting fule,--got himsell ta'en at Pavia, like our ain David at Durham lang syne;--if they could hae sent him Solomon's wit, and love of peace, and godliness, they wad hae dune him a better turn. But Solomon should sit in other gate company than Francis of France. I trust that such will be his good fortune, said Heriot. It is a curious and very artificial sculpture, said the king, in continuation; but yet, methinks, the carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gully ower near the king's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon. I think less wisdom than Solomon's wad have taught him that there was danger in edge-tools, and that he wad have bidden the smaik either sheath his shabble, or stand farther back. George Heriot endeavoured to alleviate this objection, by assuring the king that the vicinity betwixt Solomon and the executioner was nearer in appearance than in reality, and that the perspective should be allowed for. Gang to the deil wi' your prospective, man, said the king; there canna be a waur prospective for a lawful king, wha wishes to reign in luve, and die in peace and honour, than to have naked swords flashing in his een. I am accounted as brave as maist folks; and yet I profess to ye I could never look on a bare blade without blinking and winking. But a'thegither it is a brave piece;--and what is the price of it, man? The goldsmith replied by observing, that it was not his own property, but that of a distressed countryman. Whilk you mean to mak your excuse for asking the double of its worth, I warrant? answered the king. I ken the tricks of you burrows-town merchants, man. I have no hopes of baffling your Majesty's sagacity, said Heriot; the piece is really what I say, and the price a hundred and fifty pounds sterling, if it pleases your Majesty to make present payment. A hundred and fifty punds, man! and as mony witches and warlocks to raise them! said the irritated Monarch. My saul, Jingling Geordie, ye are minded that your purse shall jingle to a bonny tune!--How am I to tell you down a hundred and fifty punds for what will not weigh as many merks? and ye ken that my very household servitors, and the officers of my mouth, are sax months in arrear! The goldsmith stood his ground against all this objurgation, being what he was well accustomed to, and only answered, that, if his Majesty liked the piece, and desired to possess it, the price could be easily settled. It was true that the party required the money, but he, George Heriot, would advance it on his Majesty's account, if such were his pleasure, and wait his royal conveniency for payment, for that and other matters; the money, meanwhile, lying at the ordinary usage. By my honour, said James, and that is speaking like an honest and reasonable tradesman. We maun get another subsidy frae the Commons, and that will make ae compting of it. Awa wi' it, Maxwell--awa wi' it, and let it be set where Steenie and Babie Charles shall see it as they return from Richmond.--And now that we are secret, my good auld friend Geordie, I do truly opine, that speaking of Solomon and ourselves, the haill wisdom in the country left Scotland, when we took our travels to the Southland here. George Heriot was courtier enough to say, that the wise naturally follow the wisest, as stags follow their leader. Troth, I think there is something in what thou sayest, said James; for we ourselves, and those of our Court and household, as thou thyself, for example, are allowed by the English, for as self-opinioned as they are, to pass for reasonable good wits; but the brains of those we have left behind are all astir, and run clean hirdie-girdie, like sae mony warlocks and witches on the Devil's Sabbath e'en. I am sorry to hear this, my liege, said Heriot. May it please your Grace to say what our countrymen have done to deserve such a character? They are become frantic, man--clean brain-crazed, answered the king. I cannot keep them out of the Court by all the proclamations that the heralds roar themselves hoarse with. Yesterday, nae farther gane, just as we were mounted, and about to ride forth, in rushed a thorough Edinburgh gutterblood--a ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other, with a coat and hat that would have served a pease-bogle, and without havings or reverence, thrusts into our hands, like a sturdy beggar, some Supplication about debts owing by our gracious mother, and siclike trash; whereat the horse spangs on end, and, but for our admirable sitting, wherein we have been thought to excel maist sovereign princes, as well as subjects, in Europe, I promise you we would have been laid endlang on the causeway. Your Majesty, said Heriot, is their common father, and therefore they are the bolder to press into your gracious presence. I ken I am _pater patriae_ well enough, said James; but one would think they had a mind to squeeze my puddings out, that they may divide the inheritance, Ud's death, Geordie, there is not a loon among them can deliver a Supplication, as it suld be done in the face of majesty. I would I knew the most fitting and beseeming mode to do so, said Heriot, were it but to instruct our poor countrymen in better fashions. By my halidome, said the king, ye are a ceevileezed fellow, Geordie, and I carena if I fling awa as much time as may teach ye. And, first, see you, sir--ye shall approach the presence of majesty thus,--shadowing your eyes with your hand, to testify that you are in the presence of the Vice-gerent of Heaven.--Vera weel, George, that is done in a comely manner.--Then, sir, ye sail kneel, and make as if ye would kiss the hem of our garment, the latch of our shoe, or such like.--Very weel enacted--whilk we, as being willing to be debonair and pleasing towards our lieges, prevent thus,--and motion to you to rise;--whilk, having a boon to ask, as yet you obey not, but, gliding your hand into your pouch, bring forth your Supplication, and place it reverentially in our open palm. The goldsmith, who had complied with great accuracy with all the prescribed points of the ceremonial, here completed it, to James's no small astonishment, by placing in his hand the petition of the Lord of Glenvarloch. What means this, ye fause loon? said he, reddening and sputtering; hae I been teaching you the manual exercise, that ye suld present your piece at our ain royal body?--Now, by this light, I had as lief that ye had bended a real pistolet against me, and yet this hae ye done in my very cabinet, where nought suld enter but at my ain pleasure. I trust your Majesty, said Heriot, as he continued to kneel, will forgive my exercising the lesson you condescended to give me in the behalf of a friend? Of a friend! said the king; so much the waur--so much the waur, I tell you. If it had been something to do _yoursell_ good there would have been some sense in it, and some chance that you wad not have come back on me in a hurry; but a man may have a hundred friends, and petitions for every ane of them, ilk ane after other. Your Majesty, I trust, said Heriot, will judge me by former experience, and will not suspect me of such presumption. I kenna, said the placable monarch; the world goes daft, I think--_sed semel insanivimus omnes_--thou art my old and faithful servant, that is the truth; and, were't any thing for thy own behoof, man, thou shouldst not ask twice. But, troth, Steenie loves me so dearly, that he cares not that any one should ask favours of me but himself.--Maxwell, (for the usher had re-entered after having carried off the plate,) get into the ante-chamber wi' your lang lugs.--In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet--_Non mea renidet in domo lacunar_--for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes. D'ye mind, for thou wert in maist of our complots, how we were fain to send sax of the Blue-banders to harry the Lady of Loganhouse's dowcot and poultry-yard, and what an awfu' plaint the poor dame made against Jock of Milch, and the thieves of Annandale, wha were as sackless of the deed as I am of the sin of murder? It was the better for Jock, said Heriot; for, if I remember weel, it saved him from a strapping up at Dumfries, which he had weel deserved for other misdeeds. Ay, man, mind ye that? said the king; but he had other virtues, for he was a tight huntsman, moreover, that Jock of Milch, and could hollow to a hound till all the woods rang again. But he came to an Annandale end at the last, for Lord Torthorwald run his lance out through him.--Cocksnails, man, when I think of those wild passages, in my conscience, I am not sure but we lived merrier in auld Holyrood in those shifting days, than now when we are dwelling at heck and manger. _Cantabit vacuus_--we had but little to care for. And if your Majesty please to remember, said

however

How many times the word 'however' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

noble

How many times the word 'noble' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

m

How many times the word 'm' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

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How many times the word 'rumble' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

where

How many times the word 'where' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

behaving

How many times the word 'behaving' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

left

How many times the word 'left' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

decius

How many times the word 'decius' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

root

How many times the word 'root' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

guarded

How many times the word 'guarded' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

mean

How many times the word 'mean' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

lady

How many times the word 'lady' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

madness

How many times the word 'madness' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

depressed

How many times the word 'depressed' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

think

How many times the word 'think' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

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How many times the word 'english' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

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How many times the word 'more' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

hold

How many times the word 'hold' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

its

How many times the word 'its' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

house

How many times the word 'house' appears in the text?

which Jucundus or Juba has supplied. If we have been wanting in due consideration for him, we now trust to make up for it. When Callista, then, had so boldly left the cottage to stop the intruders, she had in one important point reckoned without her host. She spoke Latin fluently, herself, and could converse with the townspeople, most of whom could do the same; but it was otherwise with the inhabitants of the country, numbers of whom, as we have said, were in Sicca on the day of the outbreak. The two fellows, whom she went out to withstand, knew neither her nor the Latin tongue. They were of a race which called itself Canaanite, and really was so; huge, gigantic men, who looked like the sons of Enac, described in Holy Writ. They knew nothing of roads or fences, and had scrambled up the hill as they could, the shortest way, and, being free from the crowd, with far more expedition than had they followed the beaten track. She and they could not understand each other s speech; but her appearance spoke for her, and, in consequence, they seized on her as their share of the booty, and without more ado, carried her off towards Sicca. As they came up by a route of their own, so they returned, and entered the city by a gate more to the south, not the Septimian; a happy circumstance, as otherwise she would have stood every chance of being destroyed in that wholesale massacre which the soldiery inflicted on the crowd as it returned. These giants, then, got possession of Callista, and she entered Sicca upon the shoulder of one of them, who danced in with no greater inconvenience than if he was carrying on it a basket of flowers, or a box of millinery. Here the party met with the city police, who were stationed at the gate. Down with your live luggage, you rascals, they said, in their harsh Punic; what have you to do with plunder of this kind? and how came you by her? She s one of those Christian rats, your worship, answered the fellow, who, strong as he was, did not relish a contest with some dozen of armed men. Long live the Emperor! We ll teach her to eat asses heads another time, and brew fevers. I found her with a party of Christians. She s nothing but a witch, and she knows the consequences. Let her go, you drunken animal! said the constable, still keeping his distance. I ll never believe any woman is a Christian, let alone so young a one. And now I look at her, so far as I can see by this light, I think she s priestess of one of the great temples up there. She can turn herself into anything, said the other of her capturers, young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat. Away with you both, in the name of the Suffetes of Sicca and all the magistracy! cried the official. Give up your prisoner to the authorities of the place, and let the law take its course. But the Canaanites did not seem disposed to give her up, and neither party liking to attack the other, a compromise took place. Well, said the guardian of the night, the law must be vindicated, and the peace preserved. My friends, you must submit to the magistrates. But since she happens to be on your shoulder, my man, let her even remain there, and we depute you, as a beast of burden, to carry her for us, thereby to save us the trouble. Here, child, he continued, you re our prisoner; so you shall plead your own cause in the _popina_ there. Long live Decius, pious and fortunate! Long live this ancient city, colony and municipium! Cheer up, my lass, and sing us a stave or two, as we go; for I ll pledge a _cyathus_ of unmixed, that, if you choose, you can warble notes as sweet as the manna gum. Callista was silent, but she was perfectly collected, and ready to avail herself of any opportunity to better her condition. They went on towards the Forum, where a police-office, as we now speak, was situated, but did not reach it without an adventure. The Roman military force at Sicca was not more than a century of men; the greater number were at this moment at the great gate, waiting for the mob; a few, in parties of three and four, were patrolling the city. Several of these were at the entrance of the Forum when the party came up to it; and it happened that a superior officer, who was an assistant to what may be called the military president of the place, a young man, on whom much of the duty of the day had devolved, was with the soldiers. She had known him as a friend of her brother s, and recognised him in the gloom, and at once took advantage of the meeting. Help, she said, gentlemen! help, Calphurnius! these rascals are carrying me off to some den of their own. The tribune at once knew her voice. What! he cried, with great astonishment, what, my pretty Greek! You most base, infamous, and unmannerly scoundrels, down with her this instant! What have you to do with that young lady? You villains, unless you would have me crack your African skulls with the hilt of my sword, down with her, I say! There was no resisting a Roman voice, but prompt obedience is a rarity, and the ruffians began to parley. My noble master, said the constable, she s our prisoner. Jove preserve you, and Bacchus and Ceres bless you, my lord tribune! and long life to the Emperor Decius in these bad times. But she is a rioter, my lord, one of the ringleaders, and a Christian and a witch to boot. Cease your vile gutturals, you animal! cried the officer, or I will ram them down your throat with my pike to digest them. Put down the lady, beast. Are you thinking twice about it? Go, Lucius, he said to a private, kick him away, and bring the woman here. Callista was surrendered, but the fellow, sullen at the usage he had met with, and spiteful against Calphurnius, as the cause of it, cried out maliciously, Mind what you are at, noble sir, it s not our affair; you can fry your own garlic. But an Emperor is an Emperor, and an Edict is an Edict, and a Christian is a Christian; and I don t know what high places will say to it, but it s your affair. Take notice, he continued, as he got to a safer distance, raising his voice still higher, that the soldiers might hear, yon girl is a Christian priestess, caught in a Christian assembly, sacrificing asses and eating children for the overthrow of the Emperor, and the ruin of his loyal city of Sicca, and I have been interrupted in the discharge of my duty I, a constable of the place. See whether Calphurnius will not bring again upon us the plague, the murrain, the locusts, and all manner of _larv _ and _mani _ before the end of the story. This speech perplexed Calphurnius, as it was intended. It was impossible he could dispose of Callista as he wished, with such a charge formally uttered in the presence of his men. He knew how serious the question of Christianity was at that moment, and how determined the Imperial Government was on the eradication of its professors; he was a good soldier, devoted to head-quarters, and had no wish to compromise himself with his superiors, or to give bystanders an advantage over him, by setting a prisoner at liberty without inquiry, who had been taken in a Christian s house. He muttered an oath, and said to the soldiers, Well, my lads, to the Triumviri with her, since it must be so. Cheer up, my star of the morning, bright beam of Hellas, it is only as a matter of form, and you will be set at liberty as soon as they look on you. And with these words he led the way to the _Officium_. But the presiding genius of the _Officium_ was less accommodating than he had anticipated. It might be that he was jealous of the soldiery, or of their particular interference, or indignant at the butchery at the great gate, of which the news had just come, or out of humour with the day s work, and especially with the Christians; at any rate, Calphurnius found he had better have taken a bolder step, and have carried her as a prisoner to the camp. However, nothing was now left for him but to depart; and Callista fell again into the hands of the city, though of the superior functionaries, who procured her a lodging for the night, and settled to bring her up for examination next morning. The morning came, and she was had up. What passed did not transpire; but the issue was that she was remanded for a further hearing, and was told she might send to her brother, and acquaint him where she was. He was allowed one interview with her, and he came away almost out of his senses, saying she was bewitched, and fancied herself a Christian. What precisely she had said to him, which gave this impression, he could hardly say; but it was plain there must be something wrong, or there would not be that public process and formal examination which was fixed for the third day afterwards. CHAPTER XXVI. WHAT CAN IT ALL MEAN? Were the origin of Juba s madness (or whatever the world would call it) of a character which admitted of light writing about it, much might be said on the surprise of the clear-headed, narrow-minded, positive, and easy-going Jucundus, when he found one nephew substituted for another, and had to give over his wonder at Agellius, in order to commence a series of acts of amazement and consternation at Juba. He summoned Jupiter and Juno, Bacchus, Ceres, Pomona, Neptune, Mercury, Minerva, and great Rome, to witness the marvellous occurrence; and then he had recourse to the infernal gods, Pluto and Proserpine, down to Cerberus, if he be one of them; but, after all, there the portent was, in spite of all the deities which Olympus, or Arcadia, or Latium ever bred; and at length it had a nervous effect upon the old gentleman s system, and, for the first evening after it, he put all his good things from him, and went to bed supperless and songless. What had been Juba s motive in the exploit which so unpleasantly affected his uncle, it is of course quite impossible to say. Whether his mention of Callista s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista s prison, so as to excite the attention of the _apparitor_, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain. To one thing, however, we may pledge ourselves, that Juba had no intention of shaking, even for one evening, the nerves of Jucundus; yet shaken they were till about the same time twenty-four hours afterwards. And when in that depressed state, he saw nothing but misery on all sides of him. Juba was lost; Agellius worse. Of course, he had joined himself to his sect, and he should never see him again; and how should he ever hold up his head? Well, he only hoped Agellius would not be boiled in a caldron, or roasted at a slow fire. If this were done, he positively must leave Sicca, and the most thriving trade which any man had in the whole of the Proconsulate. And then that little Callista! Ah! what a real calamity was there! Anyhow he had lost her, and what should he do for a finisher of his fine work in marble, or metal? She was a treasure in herself. Altogether the heavens were very dark; and it was scarcely possible for any one who knew well his jovial cast of countenance, to keep from laughing, whatever his real sympathy, at the unusual length and blankness which were suddenly imposed upon it. While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief. He had called, indeed, the day before, but he found a pleasure in expending his distress upon others, and he came again to get rid of its insupportable weight by discharging it in a torrent of tears and exclamations. However, at first the words of both moved slow, as the poet says, and went off in a sort of dropping fire. Well, said Jucundus, in a depressed tone; he s not come to _you_, of course? Who? Agellius. Oh! Agellius! No, he s not with me. Then, after a pause, Aristo added, Why should he be? Oh, I don t know. I thought he might be. He s been gone since early morning. Indeed! No, I don t know where he is. How came he with you? I told you yesterday; but you have forgotten. I was sheltering him; but he s gone for ever. Indeed! And his brother s mad! horribly mad! and he slapped his hand against his thigh. I always thought it, answered Aristo. Did you? Yes, so it is; but it s very different from what it ever was. The furies have got hold of him with a vengeance! He s frantic! Oh, if you had seen him! Two boys, both mad! It s all the father! I thought you d like to hear something about dear, sweet Callista, said her brother. Yes, I should indeed! answered Jucundus. By Esculapius! they re all mad together! Well, it is like madness! cried Aristo, with great vehemence. The world s going mad! answered Jucundus, who was picking up, since he began to talk, an exercise which was decidedly good for him. We are _all_ going mad! _I_ shall get crazed. The townspeople are crazed already. What an abominable, brutal piece of business was that three days ago! I put up my shutters. Did it come near you? all on account of one or two beggarly Christians, and my poor boy. What harm could two or three, toads and vipers though they be, do here? They might have been trodden down easily. It s another thing at Carthage. Catch the ringleaders, I say; make examples. The foxes escape, and our poor ganders suffer! Aristo, pierced with his own misery, had no heart or head to enter into the semi-political ideas of Jucundus, who continued, Yes, it s no good. The empire s coming to pieces, mark my words! I told you so, if those beasts were let alone. They _have_ been let alone. Remedies are too late. Decius will do no good. No one s safe! Farewell, my friends! I am going. Like poor dear Callista, I shall be in prison, and, like her, find myself dumb!... Ah! yes, Callista; how did you find her? O dear, sweet, suffering girl! cried her brother. Yes, indeed! answered Jucundus; yes! meditatively. She _is_ a dear, sweet, suffering girl! I thought he might perhaps have taken her off that was my hope. He was so set upon hearing where she was, whether she could be got out. It struck me he had made the best of his way to _her_. She could do anything with him. And she loved him, she did! I m convinced of it! nothing shall convince me otherwise! Bring them together, I said, and they will rush into each other s arms. But they re bewitched! The whole world s bewitched! Mark my words, I have an idea who is at the bottom of this. Oh! groaned out Aristo; I care not for top or bottom! I care not for the whole world, or for anything at all but Callista! If you could have seen the dear, patient sufferer! and the poor fellow burst into a flood of tears. Bear up! bear up! said Jucundus, who by this time was considerably better; show yourself a man, my dear Aristo. These things must be; they are the lot of human nature. You remember what the tragedian says: stay! no! it s the comedian, it s Menander To Orcus and Erebus with all the tragedy and comedy that ever was spouted! exclaimed Aristo. Can you do nothing for me? Can t you give me a crumb of consolation or sympathy, encouragement or suggestion? I am a stranger in the country, and so is this dear sister of mine, whom I was so proud of; and who has been so good, and kind, and gentle, and sweet. She loved me so much, she never grudged me anything; she let me do just what I would with her. Come here, go there, it was just as I would. There we were, two orphans together, ten years since, when I was double her age. She wished to stay in Greece; but she came to this detestable Africa all for me. She would be gay and bright when I would have her so. She had no will of her own; and she set her heart upon nothing, and was pleased anywhere. She had not an enemy in the world. I protest she is worth all the gods and goddesses that ever were hatched! And here, in this ill-omened Africa, the evil eye has looked at her, and she thinks herself a Christian, when she is just as much a hippogriff, or a chim ra. Well, but, Aristo, said Jucundus, I was going to tell you who is at the bottom of it all. Callista s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad; but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad; and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles. Come in! come in, Cornelius! he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend! I know if you can help me, you will. Cornelius answered that he was going back to Carthage in a day or two, and came to embrace him, and had hoped to have a parting supper before he went. That s kind! answered Jucundus: but first tell me all about this dreadful affair; for you are in the secrets of the Capitol. Have they any clue what has become of my poor Agellius? Cornelius had not heard of the young man s troubles, and was full of consternation at the news. What! Agellius really a Christian? he said, and at such a moment? Why, I thought you talked of some young lady who was to keep him in order? She s a Christian too, replied Jucundus; and a silence ensued. It s a bad world! he continued. She s imprisoned by the Triumviri. What will be the end of it? Cornelius shook his head, and looked mysterious. You don t mean it? said Jucundus. Not anything so dreadful, I do trust, Cornelius. Not the stake? Cornelius still looked gloomy and pompous. Nothing in the way of torture? he went on; not the rack, or the pitchfork? It s a bad business, on your own showing, said Cornelius: it s a bad business! Can you do nothing for us, Cornelius? cried Aristo. The great people in Carthage are your friends. O Cornelius! I d do anything for you! I d be your slave! She s no more a Christian than great Jove. She has nothing about her of the cut; not a shred of her garment, or a turn of her hair. She s a Greek from head to foot within and without. She s as bright as the day! Ah! we have no friends here. Dear Callista! you will be lost because you are a foreigner! and the passionate youth began to tear his hair. O Cornelius! he continued, if you can do anything for us! Oh! she shall sing and dance to you; she shall come and kneel down to you, and embrace your knees, and kiss your feet, as I do, Cornelius! and he knelt down, and would have taken hold of Cornelius s beard. Cornelius had never been addressed with so poetical a ceremonial, which nevertheless he received with awkwardness indeed, but with satisfaction. I hear from you, he said with pomposity, that your sister is in prison on suspicion of Christianity. The case is a simple one. Let her swear by the genius of the Emperor, and she is free; let her refuse it, and the law must take its course, and he made a slight bow. Well, but she is under a delusion, persisted Aristo, which cannot last long. She says distinctly that she is _not_ a Christian, is not that decisive? but then she won t burn incense; she won t swear by Rome. She tells me she does not _believe_ in Jupiter, nor I; can anything be more senseless? It is the act of a mad woman. I say, My girl, the question is, Are you to be brought to shame? are you to die by the public sword? die in torments? Oh, I shall go mad as well as she! he screamed out. She was so clever, so witty, so sprightly, so imaginative, so versatile! why, there s nothing she couldn t do. She could model, paint, play on the lyre, sing, act. She could work with the needle, she could embroider. She made this girdle for me. It s all that Agellius, it s Agellius. I beg your pardon, Jucundus; but it is; and he threw himself on the ground, and rolled in the dust. I have been telling our young friend, said Jucundus to Cornelius, to exert self-control, and to recollect Menander, Ne quid nimis. Grieving does no good; but these young fellows, it s no use at all speaking to them. Do you think you could do anything for us, Cornelius? Why, answered Cornelius, since I have been here, I have fallen in with a very sensible man, and a man of remarkably sound political opinions. He has a great reputation, he is called Polemo, and is one of the professors at the Mercury. He seems to me to go to the root of these subjects, and I m surprised how well we agreed. He s a Greek, as well as this young gentleman s sister. I should recommend him to go to Polemo; if any one could disabuse her mind, it is he. True, true, cried Aristo, starting up, but, no, _you_ can do it better; you have power with the government. The Proconsul will listen to you. The magistrates here are afraid of _him_; _they_ don t wish to touch the poor girl, not they. But there s such a noise everywhere, and so much ill blood, and so many spies and informers, and so much mistrust but why should it come upon _Callista_? Why should _she_ be a sacrifice? But you d oblige the Duumvirs as much as me in getting her out of the scrape. But what good would it do, if they _took_ her dear life? Only get us the respite of a month; the delusion would vanish in a month. Get two months, if you can; or as long as you can, you know. Perhaps they would let us steal out of the country, and no one the wiser; and no harm to any one. It was a bad job our coming here. We know nothing at Rome of feelings and intentions, and motives and distinctions, said Cornelius; and we know nothing of understandings, connivances, and evasions. We go by facts; Rome goes by facts. The question is, What is the fact? Does she burn incense, or does she not? Does she worship the ass, or does she not? However, we ll see what can be done. And so he went on, informing the pair of mourners that, as far as his influence extended, he would do something in behalf both of Agellius and Callista. CHAPTER XXVII. AM I A CHRISTIAN? The sun had now descended for the last time before the solemn day which was charged with the fate of Callista, and what was the state of mind of one who excited such keen interest in the narrow circle within which she was known? And how does it differ from what it was some weeks before, when Agellius last saw her? She would have been unable to say herself. So is the kingdom of God: as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, whilst he knoweth not. She might, indeed, have been able afterwards, on looking back, to say many things of herself; and she would have recognised that while she was continually differing from herself, in that she was changing, yet it was not a change which involved contrariety, but one which expanded itself in (as it were) concentric circles, and only fulfilled, as time went on, the promise of its beginning. Every day, as it came, was, so to say, the child of the preceding, the parent of that which followed; and the end to which she tended could not get beyond the aim with which she set out. Yet, had she been asked, at the time of which we speak, where was her principle and her consistency, what was her logic, or whether she acted on reason, or on impulse, or on feeling, or in fancy, or in passion, she would have been reduced to silence. What did she know about herself, but that, to her surprise, the more she thought over what she heard of Christianity, the more she was drawn to it, and the more it approved itself to her whole soul, and the more it seemed to respond to all her needs and aspirations, and the more intimate was her presentiment that it was true? The longer it remained on her mind as an object, the more it seemed (unlike the mythology or the philosophy of her country, or the political religion of Rome) to have an external reality and substance, which deprived objections to it of their power, and showed them to be at best but difficulties and perplexities. But then again, if she had been asked, what was Christianity, she would have been puzzled to give an answer. She would have been able to mention some particular truths which it taught, but neither to give them their definite and distinct shape, nor to describe the mode in which they were realised. She would have said, I believe what has been told me, as from heaven, by Chione, Agellius, and C cilius: and it was clear she could say nothing else. What the three told her in common and in concord was at once the measure of her creed and the ground of her acceptance of it. It was that wonderful unity of sentiment and belief in persons so dissimilar from each other, so distinct in their circumstances, so independent in their testimony, which recommended to her the doctrine which they were so unanimous in teaching. She had long given up any belief in the religion of her country. As to philosophy, it dwelt only in conjecture and opinion; whereas the very essence of religion was, as she felt, a recognition of the worshippers on the part of the Object of it. Religion could not be without hope. To worship a being who did not speak to us, recognise us, love us, was not religion. It might be a duty, it might be a merit; but her instinctive notion of religion was the soul s response to a God who had taken notice of the soul. It was loving intercourse, or it was a name. Now the three witnesses who had addressed her about Christianity had each of them made it to consist in the intimate Divine Presence in the heart. It was the friendship or mutual love of person with person. Here was the very teaching which already was so urgently demanded both by her reason and her heart, which she found nowhere else; which she found existing one and the same in a female slave, in a country youth, in a learned priest. This was the broad impression which they made upon her mind. When she turned to consider more in detail what it was they taught, or what was implied in that idea of religion which so much approved itself to her, she understood them to say that the Creator of heaven and earth, Almighty, All-good, clothed in all the attributes which philosophy gives Him, the Infinite, had loved the soul of man so much, and her soul in particular, that

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which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

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How many times the word 'swipes' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

bridled

How many times the word 'bridled' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

ridiculous

How many times the word 'ridiculous' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

day

How many times the word 'day' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

where

How many times the word 'where' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

cuffs

How many times the word 'cuffs' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

after

How many times the word 'after' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

thank

How many times the word 'thank' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

liked

How many times the word 'liked' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

am

How many times the word 'am' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

said

How many times the word 'said' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

icy

How many times the word 'icy' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

meant

How many times the word 'meant' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

lamented

How many times the word 'lamented' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

violent

How many times the word 'violent' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

moonlight

How many times the word 'moonlight' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

stranger

How many times the word 'stranger' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

slight

How many times the word 'slight' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

longer

How many times the word 'longer' appears in the text?

which is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love, he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or any other man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to suppose that she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculous and painful position in which she had wantonly placed him. He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she would come. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, and the clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finally turned his steps towards his own apartments. To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the great audience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupied by the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez. As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see the young Spaniard standing beside the distant window. The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open, letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarly balmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisite panorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the river beyond bathed in silvery light. Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture, which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of this afternoon. It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was, between him and that vision so full of memories now. Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when he entered, and seemed absorbed in thought. "And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," mused the Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that young reprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . or because . . ." He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot in his brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standing before him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that is primitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight of his rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat, to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agony which had tortured him this past hour. He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to his own apartments. "Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. I have no need for thy company just now." The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of the faithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, wagged his tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed to his master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed to remain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet had perforce to go. The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhile Don Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turned towards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinly veiled vexation-- "Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?" "At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminence gone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?" "Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammered the young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did not think to see you here." "Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly. "Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not be indiscreet." "Well?" "Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ." "Was indiscreet?" "Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly. "Which means that you expect a lady." "Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinly veiled sarcasm. "None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-control oozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks, it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath the roof of the Queen of England." "Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose manner became more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax more violent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seek for pleasure where we are most like to find it." "Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour." "Your Grace is severe." "If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service." "Is this a quarrel?" "As you please." "Your Grace . . ." "Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones of withering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards among the grandees of Spain." "By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard. And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword. Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew now that this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolent laugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all that was tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the very background of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered and wished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking to kill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, above everything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood. "Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another a pin-prick or so?" And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, and holding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around that arm. "You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and dagger fight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one so desperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefully arranged by the Cardinal de Moreno. "By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel my glove on thy cheek?" "As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his own dagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making." "No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!" Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had fought more than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enough for mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in the eyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for the sake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination to kill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard felt an icy shiver running down his spine. The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unreal brilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of the floor, that portion where one man was to die. The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right of selecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such a peculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage. The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had his antagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared only as a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however, seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. He was still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he had appeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter, the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all would help in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards his breast. But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other, mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all that he desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, less humiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguely recollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoned daggers in their belts. CHAPTER XXVII THE FIGHT Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Cardinal's apartments. His eyes, rendered peculiarly keen by the imminence of his own danger, quickly perceived a thin fillet of artificial light running upwards from the floor, which at once suggested to him that the door was slightly ajar. It had certainly been closed when Wessex first entered the room. Behind it, as Don Miguel well knew, the Cardinal de Moreno had been watching; he was the great stage-manager of the drama which he had contrived should be enacted this night before His Grace. The young Marquis was only one of the chief actors; the principal actress being the wench Mirrab, who, surfeited with wine, impatient and violent, had been kept a close prisoner by His Eminence these last six hours past. That little glimmer of light dispelled Don Miguel's strange obsession. The Cardinal, with the slight opening of that door, had plainly meant to indicate that he was on the alert, and that this unrehearsed scene of the drama would not be enacted without his interference. The Duke, who had his back to that portion of the room, had evidently seen and heard nothing, and the whole little episode had occurred in less than three seconds. Now Don Miguel was ready, and the next moment the swords clashed against one another. Eye to eye these two enemies seemed to gauge one another's strength. For a moment their daggers, held in the left hand, only acted as weapons of defence, the cloaks wrapped round their arms were still efficient sheaths. Very soon the Spaniard realized that his original fears had not been exaggerated. Wessex was a formidable opponent, absolutely calm, a skilful fencer, and with a wrist which seemed made of steel. His attack was quick and vigorous; step by step, slowly but unerringly, he forced the Marquis away from the stronghold of his position. Try how he might, parry how he could, the young Spaniard gradually found himself thrust more and more into full light, whilst his antagonist was equally steadily working his way round towards the more advantageous post. No sound came from the Cardinal's apartments, and Don Miguel dared not even glance towards the door, for the swiftest look would have proved his undoing. Wessex' face was like a mask, quite impassive, almost stony in its rigid expression of perfect determination. The Spaniard was still steadily losing ground, another few minutes and he would be in full light, whilst the Duke's figure would become the deceptive silhouette. Under those conditions, and against such a perfect swordsman, the Marquis knew that his doom was sealed. An icy sweat broke out from his forehead, he would have bartered half his fortune to know what was going on behind the door. For one awful moment the thought crossed his mind that His Eminence perhaps had decreed his death at the hands of Wessex. Who knows? the ways of diplomacy are oft tortuous and ever cruel; none knew that better than Don Miguel de Suarez himself. How oft had he callously exercised the right given him by virtue of some important mission entrusted to him, in order to sweep ruthlessly aside the lesser pawns which stood in the way of his success? Had he become the lesser pawn now in this gigantic game of chess, in which the hand of a Queen was the final prize for the victor? Was his death, at the hand of this man, of more importance to the success of the Cardinal's intrigues than his life would be? If so, Heaven alone could help him, for His Eminence would not hesitate to sacrifice him mercilessly. The horror of these thoughts gave the young man the strength of despair. But he might just as well have tried to pierce a stone wall, as to break the _garde_ of this impassive and deadly opponent. His own wrist was beginning to tire; the combat had lasted nigh on a quarter of an hour, and the next few minutes would inevitably see its fatal issue. The Duke's attacks became more swift and violent; once or twice already Don Miguel had all but felt His Grace's dagger at his throat. Suddenly a piercing woman's shriek seemed to rend the air, the swift sound of running footsteps, the grating of a heavy door on its hinges, and then there came another cry, more definite this time-- "Wessex, have a care!" Both the men had paused, of course. Even in this supreme moment when one life hung in the balance, how could they help turning towards the distant corner of the room whence had come that piercing shriek. The door leading to the Marquis' apartments was wide open now; a flood of light came from the room beyond, and against this sudden glare, which seemed doubly brilliant to the dazed eyes of the combatants, there appeared a woman's figure, dressed in long flowing robes of clinging white, her golden hair hanging in a wild tangle over her shoulders. A quaint and weird figure! at first only a silhouette against a glowing background, but anon it came forward, disappeared completely for a while in the dense shadow of an angle of the room, but the next moment emerged again in the full light of the moon, ghostlike and fantastic; a girlish form, her white draperies half falling from her shoulders, revealing a white throat and one naked breast; on her hair a few green leaves, bacchante-like entwined and drooping, half hidden in the tangle of ruddy gold. Wessex gazed on her, his sword dropped from his hand. It was she! She, as a hellish vision had shown her to him half an hour ago, in the great room wherein he had first kissed her: a weird and witchlike creature, with eyes half veiled, and coarsened, sensuous lips. It was but a vision even now, for he could not see her very distinctly, his eyes were dazed with the play of the moonlight upon his sword, and she, after her second cry, had drawn back into the shadow. Don Miguel on the other hand had not seemed very surprised at her apparition, only somewhat vexed, as he exclaimed-- "Lady Ursula, I pray you . . ." He placed his hand on her shoulder. It was the gesture of a master, and the tone in which he spoke to her was one of command. "I pray you go within," he added curtly; "this is no place for women." Wessex' whole soul writhed at the words, the touch, the attitude of the man towards her; an hour ago, when he stood beside her, he would have bartered a kingdom for the joy of taking her hand. She seemed dazed, and her form swayed strangely to and fro; suddenly she appeared to be conscious of her garments, for with a certain shamed movement of tardy modesty she pulled a part of her draperies over her breast. "I wish to speak with him," she whispered under her breath to Don Miguel. But the Spaniard had no intention of prolonging this scene a second longer than was necessary. It had from the first been agreed between him and the Cardinal that the Duke should not obtain more than a glimpse at the wench. At any moment, after the first shock of surprise, Wessex might look more calmly, more steadily at the girl. She might begin to speak, and her voice--the hoarse voice of a gutter-bred girl--would betray the deception more quickly than anything else. The one brief vision had been all-sufficient: Don Miguel was satisfied. It had been admirably staged so far by the eminent manager who still remained out of sight, it was for the young man now to play his r le skilfully to the end. "Come!" he said peremptorily. He seized the girl's wrist, whispered a few words in her ear which never reached her dull brain, and half led, half dragged her towards the door. Wessex broke into a long, forced laugh, which expressed all the bitterness and anguish of his heart. Oh! the humiliation of it all! Wessex suddenly felt that all his anger had vanished. The whole thing was so contemptible, the banality of the episode so low and degrading, that hatred fell away from him like a mantle, leaving in his soul a sense of unutterable disgust and even of abject ridicule. His pride alone was left to suffer. He who had always held himself disdainfully aloof from all the low intrigues inseparable from Court life, who had kept within his heart a reverent feeling of chivalry and veneration for all women, whether queen or peasant, constant or fickle, for him to have sunk to this! one of a trio of vulgar mountebanks, one of two aspirants for the favours of a wanton. Of trickery, of deception, he had not one thought. How could he have? The events of the past hours had prepared him for this scene, and he had had only a brief vision in semi-darkness, whilst everything had been carefully prepared to blind him completely by this dastardly trick. "By Our Lady," he said at last, with that same bitter, heartrending laugh, "the interruption was most opportune, and we must thank the Lady Ursula for her timely intervention. What! you and I, my lord, crossing swords for that?" and he pointed with a gesture of unutterable scorn towards the swaying figure of the woman. "A farce, my lord, a farce! Not a tragedy!" He threw his dagger on to the floor and sheathed his sword, just as Don Miguel had succeeded in pushing the girl out of the room and closing the door on her. The Spaniard began to stammer an apology. "I pray you speak no more of it, my lord," said the Duke coldly, "'tis I owe you an apology for interfering in what doth not concern me. As His Eminence very pertinently remarked just now, hospitality should forbid me to fly my hawk after your lordship's birds. My congratulations, my lord Marquis!" he added with a sneer. "Your taste, I perceive, is unerring. Good night and pleasant dreams." He bowed lightly and turned to go. Don Miguel watched him until his tall figure had disappeared behind the door. Then he sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction. "An admirably enacted comedy," he mused; "a thousand congratulations to His Eminence. Carramba! this is the best night's work we have accomplished since we trod this land of fogs." CHAPTER XXVIII THE SEQUEL OF THE COMEDY Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief r le, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen, one of whom wore gorgeous purple robes, had been plying her with wine and with promises that she should see the Duke of Wessex if she agreed to answer to the name of "Lady Ursula," seeing that His Grace never spoke to any one under the rank of a lady. A clever and simple trick, which readily deceived this uneducated, half-crazy wench, whose life had been spent in gipsy booths, and whose intellect had long been quashed by the constant struggle for existence, which mostly consisted of senseless and fantastic exhibitions designed for the delectation of ignorant yokels. She liked the idea of being called "my lady" even when it was done in mockery, and was delighted at the thought of appearing in this new guise before the Duke of Wessex, for whom she had entertained a curious and passionate adoration ever since the dramatic episode of Molesey Fair. She liked still more the voluptuous garments which she was bidden to don, and was ready enough to concede to the young foreigner who thus embellished her, any favours which he chose to demand. That had been her training, poor soul! her calling in life--a vulgar trickster by day, a wanton by night. Do not be too hard in your judgment, mistress! she knew nothing of home, very little of kindred; born in the gutter, her ambition did not soar beyond good food and a little money to spend. The Duke of Wessex had saved her life; she was proud of that, and since that day she had had a burning ambition to see him again. She had hoped that a warning from the stars would prove a certain passport to his presence, but His Eminence the Cardinal and the other young gentleman had assured her that a noble name would alone lead her to him. Thus she had been content to wait a few hours: the wine was good and the foreigner not too exacting. After awhile she had dropped to sleep like some tired animal, curled up on a rug on the floor. The clash of arms had roused her, and finding that every door yielded to her touch, she ran out, in eager curiosity to see whence came the sound. Her first cry, on seeing that strange moonlit combat, was one of sheer terror; then she recognized Wessex, and gave him a cry of warning. But the wine which she had drunk had made her head heavy. She would have liked to go to the Duke, but the room seemed to be whirling unpleasantly around her. Ere she had time to utter another word the young foreigner had roughly seized her wrist and dragged her away. She was too weak to resist him, and was reluctantly compelled to follow his lead. The next moment he had closed the door on her, and she knew nothing more. Excitement had somewhat dazed her, but a moment or two later she partially recovered and collected her scattered senses. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen, but she could hear nothing. Behind her was the corridor, out of which opened several doors, one of these being the one which gave into the room wherein she had been confined the whole evening. Not a sound came from there either. There was not a sign of my lord Cardinal. Once more she tried the handle of the big door in front of her: it yielded, and she found herself back in the room where the fight had just taken place. The moonlight still streamed in through the open window. She could not see into the corners of the great hall, but straight in front of her was another massive door, exactly similar to the one in which she stood. The room itself seemed empty. Wessex had gone, and she had not spoken to him. That was the one great thought which detached itself from the turmoil which was going on in her brain. The door opposite fascinated her. Perhaps he had gone through there. Nay! surely so, for it almost seemed to her as if she could hear that strange, bitter laugh of his still echoing in the distance. She ran across the room, fearful lest he should disappear altogether ere she could get to him. But even before she reached the door she felt her arm seized, her body dragged violently back. By the light of the moon, which fell full on him, she recognized the young foreign lord. He had summarily placed himself before her, and he held her wrist in a tight grip. "Let me go!" she murmured hoarsely. "No!" "I _will_ go to him!" "You cannot!" He spoke from between his teeth, as if in a fury of rage or fear, she could not tell which, but as she, poor soul, had never inspired terror in any one she quaked before his rage. Just then she heard, as if in the room beyond, a few footsteps, then a call: "Come, Harry!" and after that the opening and shutting of a distant door. It was the Duke of Wessex going again, somewhere where perhaps she could not find him again, and here was this man standing between her and the object of her adoration. With a vigorous jerk she freed herself from Don Miguel's grasp. "Have a care, man, have a care," she said in a low, trembling voice, in which a suppressed passion seemed suddenly to vibrate. "Let me pass, or . . ." "Silence, wench!" commanded Don Miguel. "Another word and I call the guard and have thee whipped as a disturber of the peace." She started as if stung with the very lash with which he so callously threatened her. The fumes of wine and of excitement were being slowly expelled from her dull brain. A vague sense of bitter wrong crept into her heart; her own native shrewdness--the shrewdness of the country wench--made her dimly realize that she had been fooled: how and for what purpose she could not yet comprehend. She pushed the tangled hair from her forehead, mechanically readjusting her cumbersome garments, then she stepped close up to the young Spaniard; she crossed her arms over her breast and looked him boldly in the eyes. "Soho! my fine lord!" she said, speaking with a strange and pathetic effort at calmness, "that's it, is it? . . . and do ye take me for a fool, that I do not see through your tricks? . . . You and that purple-robed hypocrite there wanted to make use of me . . . you cajoled me with soft words . . . promises . . . what? . . . Bah! you tricked me, I say, do you hear?" she added with ever-increasing vehemence, "tricked me that you might trick him. . . . With all your talks of Ursula and Lady . . . the devil alone knows what ye wanted. . . . Well! you've had your way . . . he looked on me as he would on a plague-stricken cur . . . mangy and dirty. . . . Was that what ye wanted? . . . You've had your will . . . are ye satisfied . . . what more do ye want of me?" Don Miguel, much astonished at this unexpected outburst of passion, gazed at her with a sneer, then he shrugged his shoulders and said coldly-- "Nothing, wench! His Grace of Wessex does not desire thy company, and I cannot allow thee to molest him. If thou'lt depart in peace, there'll be a well-filled purse for thee . . . if not . . . the whip, my girl . . . the whip . . . understand!" "I will not go!" she repeated with dogged obstinacy. "I'll not . . . I'll not . . . I'll see him just once . . . he was good to me. . . . I love his beautiful face and his kind, white hands; I want to kiss them. . . . I'll not go . . . I'll not . . . till I've kissed them. . . . So do not stand in my way, fine sir . . . but let me get to him. . . ." The obstinate desire, half a mania now, had grown upon her with this wanton thwarting of her wishes. A wholly unfettered passion seethed in her, half made up of hatred against this man who had fooled her and caused her to be spurned with unutterable contempt by Wessex. "I'll give thee three minutes in which to get sober, my wench!" remarked Don Miguel placidly. "After that, take heed. . . ." He laughed a long, cruel laugh, and looked at her with an evil leer, up and down. "After that thou'lt go," he said slowly and significantly, "but not in peace. The Palace watch have a heavy hand . . . three men to give thee ten lashes each . . . till thy shoulders bleed, wench . . . aye! I'll have thee whipped till thou die under it . . . so go now or . . ." He looked so evil, so threatening, so full of baffled rage, that instinctively she drew back a few steps away from him, into the gloom. . . . As she did so her foot knocked against something on the floor, whilst the sharp point of some instrument of steel penetrated through the thin soles of her shoes. She had enough presence of mind, enough determination, enough deadly hatred of him, not to give forth one sound; but when he, almost overcome with his own furious passion, had paused awhile and turned from her, she stooped very quickly and picked up that thing which had struck her foot. It was an unsheathed dagger. Silently, surreptitiously, she hid it within the folds of her gown, whilst keeping a tight grip on its handle with her clenched right hand. Now she felt safe, and sure of herself and of ultimate success. Don Miguel, seeing how quiet she had become, heaved a sigh of relief. For one moment he had had the fear that she meant to create a scandal, attract the guard with her screams, bring spectators upon the scene, and thus expose the whole despicable intrigue which had just been so successfully carried through. But now she was standing quite rigid and mute, half hidden by the gloom, evidently terrorized by the cruel threats hurled against her. "Well, which

chief

How many times the word 'chief' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

hard

How many times the word 'hard' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

seasons

How many times the word 'seasons' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

thank

How many times the word 'thank' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

say

How many times the word 'say' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

pawns

How many times the word 'pawns' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

shoulders

How many times the word 'shoulders' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

avalanche

How many times the word 'avalanche' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

call

How many times the word 'call' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

sexual

How many times the word 'sexual' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

golden

How many times the word 'golden' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

hook

How many times the word 'hook' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

footfall

How many times the word 'footfall' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

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How many times the word 'spent' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

emotion

How many times the word 'emotion' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

course

How many times the word 'course' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

calculated

How many times the word 'calculated' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

boy

How many times the word 'boy' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

hear

How many times the word 'hear' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

peak

How many times the word 'peak' appears in the text?

which she hands to M. M looks over the file: his medical report. M I see the good doctor gave you glowing testimonials. 'Exceptional stamina'... MONEYPENNY He's always been good at oral exams. Moneypenny disappears out the door. M is all business. M Get out to the pipeline. Find the insider who switched the pin. If your instincts are right, Renard will be back. He hasn't completed the job. The pipeline is still going forward, and we have Elektra to thank for that. BOND The worm on the hook again. They exchange a look. A look of recognition between two professionals, who know the terrible price of what they do. INT. Q'S LAB - NIGHT A Scot in a kilt plays the bagpipes -- badly. He spins round, drops the pipe from his mouth, simultaneously fires bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target is a realistic dummy -- now a molten, bullet-ridden mess. We're in Q's laboratory. He's walking Bond through. BOND Scottish heavy metal, Q? Q Oh pipe down, 007. (irritated, hands over a WATCH) Your 29th. Try not to lose this one. It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile micro-filament, able to support 800 pounds. In the background, we see a man in a sleek black jacket. The man PULLS A STRING...the jacket becomes AN AIRBAG...it envelopes him, he gets impossibly tangled in it. Q ignores it, handing Bond a new pair of GLASSES. Q New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons. BOND And other uses, no doubt. Q Abuses in your case. You destroyed my hydro-boat in less than seven minutes, as no doubt will be the case with this... He presses a button and a section of ceiling lowers to reveal a BMW Z7. A MAN in a white coat is loading A MISSILE into one of the headlamps, then steps off the platform. Q gestures to him. Q 007, my Deputy Assistant. I'm grooming him to follow me. BOND (to Man) That would make you..."R"? R Ahh, the rampant 007 wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you've met your match in this machine. (touring the car) The absolute latest in intercepts, surveillance and countermeasures. Titanium plating and armor, a multi- tasking heads-up display. Completely indestructible. All in all, rather stocked. Q 'Fully loaded' I think is the term. "R" pats the fender, he's pretty damned fond of his machine. R Do take good care of her. CUT TO: EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY A hot day. CAMERA soars over tall trees. We can just make out the sleek muscular car, beetle-black and far below, bouncing over rough terrain. Bond "taking care" of his new BMW Z7. INT. BOND'S CAR - NR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY We join Bond at the wheel, driving hard, loving it, pushing up extreme inclines, smashing through overhanging limbs. EXT. PERIMETER FENCE, CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond reaches a PERIMETER FENCE, manned by a GUARD. The guard examines Bond's PASS and waves him through. EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY (OLD SC. 69) As Bond drives on he passes an area where HELICOPTERS trailing GIANT SAWS are trimming back trees. Felled trees are being dragged away, being replaced by huge metal sheets. An incredibly fast and well-oiled operation -- but why? EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond pulls up at the CONSTRUCTION SITE, teeming with ultra- modern robotic construction machines and vehicles. He gets out, and is immediately surrounded by men with guns. A man in a suit steps forward. DAVIDOV is tall, blonde, with a dangerous charm Bond instantly recognizes as ex-KGB. He turns Bond around, hands on the car. Pats him down. Pulls out an ID, checks it: DAVIDOV (excellent English) Bond. A government man. I'm afraid since you English got the boss killed we've been a little...jumpy. Bond stares ahead, watches a PRIVATE JET swoops past... OMITTED EXT. AIRSTRIP AREA NEAR CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY The jet lands on a runway of the metal sheets Bond saw being laid as he passed... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE, NEAR CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS - DAY Davidov pulls out Bond's gun. BOND (re: gun) I'd rather you didn't play with that. Davidov ignores him, looking the gun over. DAVIDOV Nice. BOND Quite stunning. Bond turns to watch a LIFTING HELICOPTER swoop in and drop down an air-conditioned office. Military precision. Davidov's radio crackles out a message and he tosses the gun back to Bond. They start walking: DAVIDOV (pleasant) Sorry about all that, comrade. Old habits die hard. I am Head of Security. Davidov. Bond eyes him, but is distracted by a jet coming to a halt ahead of them. Stairs swing down and out steps ELEKTRA KING. Beautiful, elegant. So out of place in this world of men. She surveys the worksite. Impressed, Bond takes his ID back from Davidov. INT. OFFICE, CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS Bond and Davidov step into a fully functioning office. Everything Elektra requires is here. Computer, phones, drinks cabinet. She is in the middle of a group of workmen and secretaries, looking at plans, talking, pouring herself a cup of coffee. ELEKTRA (to Foreman) ...they should have been in place two days ago. That is the target my father set. FOREMAN We've had some trouble with the villagers at Ruan. Some sacred burial plot... DAVIDOV Miss King...James Bond here to see you. She looks up...a brief moment of RECOGNITION...then back to business. ELEKTRA Find me the research on the limestone deposits, go ahead and place these orders, and get the jeep ready. I will go to Ruan myself... DAVIDOV Miss King, I wouldn't recommend... ELEKTRA I said, I will go. She signs some documents and the men file out. She gets up, turning her back to Bond, hands on her hips. ELEKTRA Would you excuse us, Davidov? Davidov nods and leaves. Elektra still keeps her back turned, but he can see her physically change, her shoulders sag, her arms cross in front of her. When she finds her voice, it has a gravelly sound of emotion. ELEKTRA I met you at my father's funeral. BOND Yes. ELEKTRA I haven't been able to recall a single moment of that day...until now. BOND Funerals aren't exactly memorable. ELEKTRA God no. All those horrible loved ones and relatives. I don't want to talk to those people. I just want to...talk to my father. (beat) I loved him. I'm not sure he knew that. BOND Is that why you want to finish the pipeline? ELEKTRA Partially, yes. Her muscleman BODY GUARD appears, says briefly: GABOR The jeep is ready, Ma'am. Will I be driving with you? ELEKTRA No, Gabor. We have a guest. Gabor glares at Bond before he leaves. BOND Who is he? ELEKTRA My bodyguard. He follows me everywhere. He's decisive, vigilant. And he makes an excellent omelette. BOND How long has he been with you? ELEKTRA Since the kidnapping. Why do you ask? Bond takes something out of his pocket, he opens his palm, shows it to her. BOND Does this look familiar to you? ELEKTRA It's my father's pin. He wore it everyday of his life. She swallows back emotion. Looks in his eyes, with a sad half- smile that unsettles him. ELEKTRA Are you trying to break my heart? Or is it just your way with women? BOND It's not the pin your father wore. It's an exact duplicate. Inside is a tiny electrical detonator. We have reason to believe the assassin had an inside accomplice, someone who worked at this company. ELEKTRA If you've come here to look after me, Mr. Bond, thank you, but no thank you. I have two bodyguards, I don't need a third... She starts to walk out. He follows her... EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - CONTINUOUS BOND The killer doesn't want to see this pipeline continue, doesn't want to see you take over... ELEKTRA That's every man within a five mile radius. Including you. (off his look) That's why you're here, isn't it? You think I can't do it. You think I'm going to screw up. Or get myself killed. BOND I think running this pipeline would be a difficult job for anyone. Especially King's daughter. ELEKTRA You are wrong, Mr. Bond. In fact, I am the only person who can do it. CUT TO: EXT. JEEP, TRAVELING - OILFIELDS - DAY Elektra drives the all-terrain jeep with casual assurance. Bond is beside her, cold-weather gear in the back. They're following a huge pipeline, passing a blighted petrified forest of twisted iron: derelict oil derricks. Elektra gestures at the oil fields they're now leaving behind. Receding into the distance, a DELTA OF ROADWAYS perched on rusting stilts juts out into the sea. ELEKTRA My mother's people discovered oil here ninety years ago. The Bolsheviks slaughtered them for it. (beat) Some say oil is in my family's blood. I say our blood is in the oil. This is the very heart of the planet. Up here in the hills was Eden, literally. Look what the Russians did to it. Now we have a second chance and this time we'll do it right. When the other wells have all dried up, she'll still be pumping her lifeblood to the world. And this (proudly, of pipeline) Will be one of the main arteries... OMITTED 75- EXT. POV FROM HELICOPTER - DAY Bond and Elektra travel beside the vast pipe through dramatic, beautiful, scenery... INT. HELICOPTER - DAY Davidov and Gabor, in the helicopter, watch the jeep below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS (CAPPADOCIA, THE VILLAGE OF ZELVE) - DAY The jeep reaches a break in the pipe: a SURVEY CAMP, flags, strings. The SURVEY CREW cower behind a 4WD, local tribesman are stoning them from a village carved into the rock. A lot of SHOUTING. Before Bond can stop her, Elektra gets out, moves toward the tribesmen. The stoning ceases. They know who she is. She begins to speak quietly -- in their own tongue. INT. CHAPEL, ZELVE - DAY A stunning pre-Byzantine chapel hewn from the rock. Flames illuminate beautiful mosaics and paintings on the cavern wall. A COPTIC PRIEST proudly shows Elektra about, jabbering in his mother tongue. She answers in his language. Bond watches her, impressed. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP - DISTORTED ELECTRONIC POV, FROM ABOVE: We hear the click of high-powered electronic binoculars, zeroing in on Bond and Elektra as they return to the survey team. This can't be Davidov's view, as the helicopter has settled down below. EXT. CONSTRUCTION CAMP, FOOTHILLS OF MOUNTAINS - DAY Bond is edgy. Someone is out there. He's sure of it. He sees Davidov and Gabor scanning the area as well. Elektra speaks to the foreman. ELEKTRA Send the pipe around. FOREMAN It will take weeks, cost millions. Your father approved this route. ELEKTRA Then my father was wrong. The first time Elektra has asserted her own authority. The foreman is surprised, angry. But he doesn't question her. She moves toward the helicopter, says to Bond: ELEKTRA I have to check the upper lines. Gabor will drive you back. BOND Always wanted to see the upper lines. ELEKTRA You don't take no for an answer, do you? BOND No. She shrugs, mischief in her eyes. ELEKTRA Alright then. Do you ski? Bond just smiles. BOND I've been known to. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY The chopper swoops over SNOWY WASTES. It reaches a mountain peak, hovers. The wind is strong, buffeting. Elektra and Bond are both now in ski suits, Bond wearing a sleek black jacket. PILOT Can't land. Wind's too strong! ELEKTRA Just hold her steady. (to Bond) You wanted to see it. She steps into her skis, opens the door. Wind rushes in. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Without a moment's hesitation, Elektra leaps out of the chopper and falls fifteen feet, landing on the move. INT/EXT. HELICOPTER - DAY Unbelieving, Bond quickly dons skis and leaps after her. EXT. MOUNTAINS - DAY Below him on the mountain, she is already a way ahead. Her skiing is fearless. Bond likes a challenge... They wind down the slope, competitive, testing one another, enjoying it. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - DAY After an exhilarating run, she stops on the edge of a huge drop. Bond joins her. They look down at the snowy valley below. A line of survey FLAGS visible through the middle. ELEKTRA We're building from both ends. This is where they'll meet. Fifteen hundred miles from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Bond and Elektra stand on the mountainside, feeling like the only two people in the world, when they hear: THE DISTANT HUM OF A PLANE. EXT. SKY - DAY They see FOUR OBJECTS falling out the back of the aircraft. As the objects plummet silently toward the earth, they POP PARACHUTES, their fall slows and then, as Bond and Elektra watch in disbelief... GUNFIRE echoes out from the black shapes, now visible as PARASKIS, low-flying, sleek, deadly snow vehicles. EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP - DAY Bond turns to Elektra, he has to yell over the sound of the approaching machines. BOND Head for that gully, I'll lure them into the trees! He points her off to one side, where a shallow gully offers cover...she skis off to shelter and he skis OUT...INTO THE OPEN...where the paraskis trail after him... He streaks toward the trees as the vehicles gain on him, firing... EXT. FOREST He makes it to the woods, finding cover in the trees, whipping in and out of sight as PARASKI #1 tries to follow, sinking lower and lower until... HIS SKIDS catch on some over hanging branches...the Paraski is CATAPULTED into a tree and EXPLODES... EXT. WOODS - CONTINUOUS Coming in to pick up the pursuit of Bond is Paraski #2, firing down at Bond, dropping bombs which explode just behind him in the snow. The other two paraskis LAND and eject their chutes, now RACING THROUGH THE WOODS on the ground. Bond looks behind him, sees them gaining...he zigzags through the trees and suckers Paraski #3 to glance off one tree, hit another and wipe out behind. But the remaining predator on the ground, Paraski #4, is gaining on him...Bond bursts out of the trees and finds himself heading toward... THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE... He cranks himself right, narrowly avoiding a tumble over the edge. Paraski #4 isn't so lucky and SAILS OFF THE CLIFF to a hundred and fifty foot drop. BOND (smiling) Should have stuck to snowboarding. But the smile is wiped off his face as...AN EMERGENCY PARACHUTE deploys from the back... The Paraski does a climbing turn and heads straight back for him... Bond skis for his life, away from Paraski #4 when PARASKI #2 appears in front of him...guns blazing... One ahead and one behind, Bond turns back...he has nowhere to go but... OVER THE EDGE He sails through the air and lands on the Paraski #4, slashing the parachute with his ski pole before bouncing off and doing an amazing tumbling hundred foot fall to the snow, where he lands on his skis... Paraski four, the chute tangling in the rotors of its propeller, struggles to maintain control, his vehicle inexorably hurtling toward PARASKI #2: both of them having set their course for Bond, they are now on a collision course with EACH OTHER... IN THE GULLY BELOW Bond meets up with Elektra as above them... The two Paraskis collide, crashing into the snowy hill above and tumbling down, end over end. Bond and Elektra huddle together as shards and debris rain down on them. Then...silence. An eerie silence. ELEKTRA Are they gone? All of them? Bond nods, ripping from his pole a PIECE OF THE PARACHUTE he slashed and wiping his face with it...he looks at the piece of fabric in his hand. He sees: CYRILLIC LETTERS...undecipherable to us...but there is a look on his face, a look of recognition as... AN EARTH RATTLING RUMBLE grows above them. Bond stuffs the parachute fragment in his ski-suit as he turns... The exploding Paraskis have triggered AN AVALANCHE on the slope above. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY They try to outrun it -- riding the sliding hill -- but they haven't a hope... the rest of the snow is catching them, they're going to get swallowed. EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE/AVALANCHE AREA - DAY The ground shudders, the THUNDER CLOSING... Their ankles are soon covered, Elektra falls. Bond stops, pulls her up. They're about to die. He pulls her to him. BOND Hold on to me. She's confused and frightened but does as she's told. They hold one another tight as -- here it comes -- the white fury hurtles over them, burying them... At the last moment, just as their heads vanish from view... CLOSE ON BOND PULLING THE Q GADGET ON THE JACKET. The AIRBAG slams open. The snow covers it and them. More and more snow slides over... CUT TO: INT. SNOW HOLE - MOMENTS LATER Darkness. The RUMBLING CEASES... Light emanates from Bond's watch. In the shadows he pulls a knife, punctures the air bag. It deflates, leaving them cocooned in an icy tomb. Elektra looks around, staring, unbelieving. ELEKTRA Oh my God...we're buried alive... BOND We're alright. But her breath is coming in short, irregular bursts. ELEKTRA I can't stay here. BOND You're not going to. Bond takes a knife from a sheath around his ankle. Flicks open the small blade. He starts to cut a hole in the snow above their heads. She stops him. ELEKTRA No! It will cave in! BOND It's the only way out... The snow CREAKS eerily, she gasps, terror mounting. ELEKTRA I can't breathe, I can't breathe... Bond grabs her, holds her tight. She resists, bucks. BOND Elektra, look at me, look in my eyes! (she does) You're alright. Everything will be alright. Trust me. Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes, she calms... EXT. MOUNTAINS - MOMENTS LATER A beautiful expanse of smooth virgin snow. All is quiet. CLOSER Bond's fist PUNCHES through the white. He pulls the snow away, climbs out. Leans in, lifts Elektra out. Bond and Elektra stand, lone figures in the perfect white. They hear a sound...HELICOPTER ROTORS. Rescue on its way. CUT TO: EXT. ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY An establishing shot of Bond's BMW parked outside the ornate villa on the shore of the golden Caspian. INT. ENTRANCE HALL, ELEKTRA'S VILLA - DAY Palatial. Hallway dominated by a LARGE PAINTING of a bearded man in traditional Turkish garb, sitting proudly on a horse. Davidov, Gabor, waiting, pacing. Bond is sits in a chair, ON EDGE, writing something over and over on a small pad of paper...THE CYRILLIC LETTERS on the parachute fragment. A DOCTOR comes down the grand staircase. The men stand. DOCTOR She's fine. Contusions. A slight strain to her ankle, but otherwise, fine. (to Bond) She wants to see you. INT. ELEKTRA'S BEDROOM - SUNSET Bond enters. Elektra is standing by the window watching the golden ball of the sun sink into the sea. She wears nothing but a silk embroidered robe; the sun shows through it, outlining her naked body in soft, shadowy curves. ELEKTRA Are you alright? He nods. He is wound tight, she senses it. BOND I can't stay. ELEKTRA I know. A moment. ELEKTRA I need to ask you something. And I need you to tell me the truth. He waits. ELEKTRA Who is it? Who is trying to kill me? Bond looks at her; vulnerable, fragile, trying to be strong. He cannot tell her the truth. BOND I don't know. But I will find him. She stares at him, sensing he is withholding something. She turns back to the window. He approaches behind her. ELEKTRA After the kidnapping...I was afraid to go outside, to be alone, to be in a crowd, to do anything at all, until I realized... (pause) There's no point in living if you can't...feel alive. She looks out at the fading sun. ELEKTRA I can't huddle in the shadows. I can't let fear run my life. I won't. She turns to him. ELEKTRA The way I acted, in the snow...you must think I'm a coward. BOND I think you're one of the bravest people I've ever met. She looks up at him, into his eyes; they are so close. All she has to do is tilt her mouth upward...she kisses him. His hands come up across her back, pressing her toward him, her body melting into his, and then... He pulls back. Has to physically step away from her. ELEKTRA What is it? BOND ...you should rest. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. He sees the rebellion flair in her eyes. ELEKTRA James... BOND I have to go. ELEKTRA Then take me with you. BOND No. You'll be safe here. ELEKTRA I don't want to be safe! BOND I have to go to work. He starts toward the door. ELEKTRA Now who's the coward? He stops, his back up...then heads out the door. IN THE HALLWAY He passes Gabor, standing faithfully outside. CUT TO: EST. SHOT - EXT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Elegant, mysterious. A modern day Casablanca. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT Bond in evening dress in the sumptuous casino. He takes out the Q glasses, slips them on, surveys the room -- HIS X-RAY POV He can see all the WEAPONS carried by the players. All sizes of pistol, even the odd grenade. The obvious side-effect of this view -- he can see through clothes. His eyes alight on two girls walking away from him. One of them turns to look back, unaware that she is on display. She returns Bond's smile. Her friend turns to look. Bond's smile grows: she has a small pistol concealed over one breast. INT. CASINO NOIR D'OR, BAKU - NIGHT He looks over the lenses -- and spies someone on the fringes. His old adversary, ex-KGB, VALENTIN ZUKOVSKY, talking to some suspicious types. Zukovsky looks across. Bond walks toward him. BOND Valentin Zukovsky. ZUKOVSKY BondJamesBond. What brings you here? BOND You, of course. I need some information. ZUKOVSKY Bond, I'm a civilian. This is my place. Used to be the royal family's, now it's mine. I run my little business, I stay out of trouble... BOND (looking about) Mafia warlords, Diplomats and spies, consortiums from every country in the world. A nice little rat's nest. ZUKOVSKY (offering hors d'ouevres) Have some of the rat's nest caviar. From my own fishery. They buy my caviar, drink my champagne, lose to my House. He turns to a suspicious-looking Heavy. ZUKOVSKY Let me introduce you to a former colleague of mine at the KGB. Dmitri Palov, you may know him as...the Boa. The Boa is completely bald, muscular; huge, deadly hands. BOA The great 007. For years I have dreamed of closing my hands around your neck. BOND Boa. Have you had any therapy since Perestroika? ZUKOVSKY Why am I suddenly worried I'm not carrying enough insurance? The Boa leaves, glaring all the while. ZUKOVSKY See? You're upsetting my customers. What do you want? BOND How does a terrorist like Renard supply his men with state-of-the-art Russian Army weapons? ZUKOVSKY What? This is not possible. Bond takes from his pocket the fragment of the PARACHUTE. Zukovsky examines the letters. BOND If I remember my Cyrillic that says 101st airborne division. ZUKOVSKY Where did you get this? BOND Off a high-powered Paraski that was trying to kill me. Zukovsky shakes his head. Sighs. ZUKOVSKY The Russian Army, they spend millions on flying skis, but they cannot afford to pay the soldiers. The men, they do what they have to do to feed their families. In this country, for the right price and a pack of cigarettes, you can get anything you want. He notices Bond watching THE HOSTESS BAR...a dark alcove of the casino, where slinky HOOKERS flatter the guests. ZUKOVSKY That too. Everyone does what they can to survive. BOND How high up does this...arms dealing go? ZUKOVSKY Bond. If someone wants you dead, it is Renard. Our government has nothing to gain by killing you. BOND But you would have something to gain by killing Robert King. And stopping his pipeline. This hits Zukovsky. He closes down. A chill between them. ZUKOVSKY Poor Bond. The cold war is over. What have you got left? Economic espionage. Murder in the boardroom. So dull. Bond's eyes catch something, someone entering the casino. HIS POV: ELEKTRA...more vibrant than we have ever seen her, living up to her name. She is impossibly glamorous in a sparkling dress that fits like second skin. Her hair is full and tumbling, her eyes are fiery and wild. BOND Oh, you'd be surprised. Bond starts toward her, but she tosses her head, defiant, and turns away, making her way to the Roulette tables. Bond follows her across the casino. They are like two cats, moving through this neon jungle, their energy dangerous and sexy, all eyes on them. He takes note as she passes...MINIMUM $100, then $500, $1000... She finally stops at the 'No limit' table. Crowded with the nastiest and richest of the high rollers, Armenians, Turks, South Americans, a computer nerd American and a Russian industrialist's wife, heavy with jewelry and drink. ZUKOVSKY is suddenly there, pulling out a seat for her in the center. ZUKOVSKY We've kept your father's chair free. ELEKTRA And his account? ZUKOVSKY You have a credit line of a million and a half. He gestures to the Dealer, who pushes ten towering stacks of CHIPS toward her. A WAITRESS is right there to take her order. ELEKTRA Vodka martini. BOND Two. Shaken not stirred. He leans in, smiling his charming smile as he says: BOND What the hell are you doing here? ELEKTRA (smiling right back) Someone wants to kill me, I'd rather die looking him straight in the eye. (lightly) What are you doing here? Looking for a woman a little more your type? How about that one? She points to a SHOW GIRL in a feather headdress and pasties. BOND If this little show is for my benefit, I'll take you home right now. ELEKTRA You had your chance, James. Now I'm looking for a bigger thrill. She pushes half her chips back onto the table, letting them stand on her bet. The whole table exhales. Then, it starts: bets are placed, gamblers energized by her arrival. Bond scans the room, vigilant, nervous... HIS P.O.V. He zeroes in on Davidov, sidling off, away from the table, trying to look nonchalant, his eyes shifting this way and that...he looks suspicious as hell. Bond watches, his blood running, and then... Davidov slips into the HOSTESS BAR. A HOOKER is soon wrapping herself around him. After a few words, she leads him off toward the back. Bond returns to the game, shaking his head. He watches as THE DEALER DEALS FROM THE SHOE. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIV - NIGHT A small room. Lit by sconces that sport LIVE FLAMES. Tacky- luxurious, a refracted Eastern reflection on an old west whore house. Davidov undresses in the little bathroom alcove. He faces a small ornate mirror over the sink, in which he can see THE HOOKER behind him, on the bed. HOOKER You want to be...on top, or not on top? DAVIDOV On top. She slowly pulls a pair of SILK ROPES out from her bra and DANGLES THEM. HOOKER Tied up, or not tied up? Davidov smiles, struggling with his belt. He looks down, gets it, looks up...his heart stops...it is not the hooker in the mirror but... RENARD'S FRIGHTENING FACE. Davidov spins. HIS P.O.V. Renard's henchman stands by the door, an automatic rifle cocked at Davidov. RENARD Dead, or not dead? CUT TO: INT. CASINO - THE BLACK JACK TABLE Elektra with black king showing. A seven beneath. BOND I understand it's normally good practice to get the feel of the cards before going off the deep end. ELEKTRA Really? And with a smile she scratches her cards on the table for a hit. The Dealer gives her an eight. She reveals her cards. DEALER Bust. He rakes in her chips. But Elektra is undeterred. She pushes another pile forward as the next deal commences. ELEKTRA I like the deep end, James. CUT TO: INT. SALON PRIVE The HENCHMAN holds Davidov against the wall with his huge fist around his neck. Near his head, the live flame of a SCONCE hisses, burning blue and yellow, drawing their fuel from the glass basin of hot oil attached beneath it. The HOOKER, obviously one of Renard's gang, has finished donning her khaki pants and combat boots and straps a gun onto her shoulder. Renard looks distastefully at the room. RENARD Is this how you spend the money I pay you? And with the rest you hire fools who shoot like blind men? DAVIDOV (croaks out) Bond... RENARD Should be dead as well. Your failure today is astonishing. It is a disgrace. He approaches close to him, stopping at the flaming SCONCE near his head. RENARD Do you know why the color is blue at the wick? Davidov starts to sweat. RENARD Because that is where the flame is the hottest. Renard touches the glass well of oil. RENARD The temperature is close to five hundred degrees. Renard uses his knife and POPS the seal from the lamp, removing the well of oil...a DROP of the hot oil FALLS ON HIS HAND and SINGES IT BLACK in an instant... Renard does not even flinch. Davidov starts talking, trying to placate... DAVIDOV The plane...it's all been arranged... RENARD Then you are completely unnecessary... Renard raises the container of oil over Davidov's head: DAVIDOV I have the documents, the landing authorizations, the security passes... Renard stops, the oil tilted, just ready to pour... His dead

both

How many times the word 'both' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

won

How many times the word 'won' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

once

How many times the word 'once' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

currant

How many times the word 'currant' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

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which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

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which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

get

How many times the word 'get' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

wife

How many times the word 'wife' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

ashamed

How many times the word 'ashamed' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

recommending

How many times the word 'recommending' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

better

How many times the word 'better' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

behaviour

How many times the word 'behaviour' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

conceal

How many times the word 'conceal' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

proven

How many times the word 'proven' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

religion

How many times the word 'religion' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

procurator

How many times the word 'procurator' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

law

How many times the word 'law' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

making

How many times the word 'making' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

rimmed

How many times the word 'rimmed' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

middle

How many times the word 'middle' appears in the text?

which, instead of enlivening the passing hour, did but inflict pain. This friendly intercourse had now gone on for some months, as the leisure of both parties admitted. Once or twice brother and sister had come to the suburban farm; but for the most part, in spite of his intense dislike of the city, he had for their sake threaded its crowded and narrow thoroughfares, crossed its open places, and presented himself at their apartments. And was it very strange that a youth so utterly ignorant of the world, and unsuspicious of evil, should not have heard the warning voice which called him to separate himself from heathenism, even in its most specious form? Was it very strange, under these circumstances, that a sanguine hope, the hope of the youthful, should have led Agellius to overlook obstacles, and beguile himself into the notion that Callista might be converted, and make a good Christian wife? Well, we have nothing more to say for him; if we have not already succeeded in extenuating his offence, we must leave him to the mercy, or rather to the justice, of his severely virtuous censors. But all this while Jucundus had been conversing with him; and, unless we are quick about it, we shall lose several particulars which are necessary for those who wish to pursue without a break the thread of his history. His uncle had brought the conversation round to the delicate point which had occasioned his visit, and had just broken the ice. With greater tact, and more ample poetical resources than we should have given him credit for, he had been led from the scene before him to those prospects of a moral and social character which ought soon to employ the thoughts of his dear Agellius. He had spoken of vines and of their culture, _apropos_ of the dwarf vines around him, which stood about the height of a currant-bush. Thence he had proceeded to the subject of the more common vine of Africa, which crept and crawled along the ground, the extremity of each plant resting in succession on the stock of that which immediately preceded it. And now, being well into his subject, he called to mind the high vine of Italy, which mounts by the support of the slim tree to which it clings. Then he quoted Horace on the subject of the marriage of the elm and the vine. This lodged him _in medias res_; and Agellius s heart beat when he found his uncle proposing to him, as a thought of his own, the very step which he had fancied was almost a secret of his own breast, though Juba had seemed to have some suspicion of it. My dear Agellius, said Jucundus, it would be a most suitable proceeding. I have never taken to marrying myself; it has not lain in my way, or been to my taste. Your father did not set me an encouraging example; but here you are living by yourself, in this odd fashion, unlike any one else. Perhaps you may come in time and live in Sicca. We shall find some way of employing you, and it will be pleasant to have you near me as I get old. However, I mean it to be some time yet before Charon makes a prize of me; not that I believe all that rubbish more than you, Agellius, I assure you. It strikes me, Agellius began, that perhaps you may think it inconsistent in me taking such a step, but Ay, ay, that s the rub, thought Jucundus; then aloud, Inconsistent, my boy! who talks of inconsistency? what superfine jackanapes dares to call it inconsistent? You seem made for each other, Agellius she town, you country; she so clever and attractive, and up to the world, you so fresh and Arcadian. You ll be quite the talk of the place. That s just what I don t want to be, said Agellius. I mean to say, he continued, that if I thought it inconsistent with my religion to think of Callista Of course, of course, interrupted his uncle, who took his cue from Juba, and was afraid of the workings of Agellius s human respect; but who knows you have been a Christian? no one knows anything about it. I ll be bound they all think you an honest fellow like themselves, a worshipper of the gods, without crotchets or hobbies of any kind. I never told them to the contrary. My opinion is, that if you were to make your libation to Jove, and throw incense upon the imperial altar to-morrow, no one would think it extraordinary. They would say for certain that they had seen you do it again and again. Don t fancy for an instant, my dear Agellius, that you have anything whatever to get over. Agellius was getting awkward and mortified, as may be easily conceived, and Jucundus saw it, but could not make out why. My dear uncle, said the youth, you are reproaching me. Not a bit of it, said Jucundus, confidently, not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can t be wise all at once; _I_ had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It s natural you should grow more attached to things as they are, things as they are, you know, as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You ve been a little headstrong, I can t deny, and had your fling in your own way; but nuces pueris, as you will soon be saying yourself on a certain occasion. Your next business is to consider what kind of a marriage you propose. I suppose the Roman, but there is great room for choice even there. It is a proverb how different things are in theory and when reduced to practice. Agellius had thought of the end more than of the means, and had had a vision of Callista as a Christian, when the question of rites and forms would have been answered by the decision of the Church without his trouble. He _was_ somewhat sobered by the question, though in a different way from what his uncle wished and intended. Jucundus proceeded First, there is _matrimonium confarreationis_. You have nothing to do with that: strictly speaking, it is obsolete; it went out with the exclusiveness of the old patricians. I say strictly speaking ; for the ceremonies remain, waiving the formal religious rite. Well, my dear Agellius, I don t recommend this ceremonial to you. You d have to kill a porker, to take out the entrails, to put away the gall, and to present it to Juno Pronuba. And there s fire, too, and water, and frankincense, and a great deal of the same kind, which I think undesirable, and you would too; for there, I am sure, we are agreed. We put this aside then, the religious marriage. Next comes the marriage _ex coemptione_, a sort of mercantile transaction. In this case the parties buy each other, and become each other s property. Well, every man to his taste; but for me, I don t like to be bought and sold. I like to be my own master, and am suspicious of anything irrevocable. Why should you commit yourself (do you see?) for ever, _for ever_, to a girl you know so little of? Don t look surprised: it s common sense. It s very well to buy _her_; but to be bought, that s quite another matter. And I don t know that you can. Being a Roman citizen yourself, you can only make a marriage with a citizen; now the question is whether Callista is a citizen at all. I know perfectly well the sweeping measure some years back of Caracalla, which made all freemen citizens of Rome, whatever might be their country; but that measure has never been carried out in fact. You d have very great difficulty with the law and the customs of the country; and then, after all, if the world were willing to gratify you, where s your proof she is a freewoman? My dear boy, I must speak out for your good, though you re offended with me. I wish you to have her, I do; but you can t do impossibilities you can t alter facts. The laws of the empire allow you to have her in a certain definite way, and no other; and you cannot help the law being what it is. I say all this, even on the supposition of her being a freewoman; but it is just possible she may be in law a slave. Don t start in that way; the pretty thing is neither better nor worse for what she cannot help. I say it for your good. Well, now I m coming to my point. There is a third kind of marriage, and that is what I should recommend for you. It s the _matrimonium ex usu_, or _consuetudine_; the great advantage here is, that you have no ceremonies whatever, nothing which can in any way startle your sensitive mind. In that case, a couple are at length man and wife _pr scriptione_. You are afraid of making a stir in Sicca; in this case you would make none. You would simply take her home here; if, as time went on, you got on well together, it would be a marriage; if not, and he shrugged his shoulders no harm s done; you are both free. Agellius had been sitting on a gate of one of the vineyards; he started on his feet, threw up his arms, and made an exclamation. Listen, listen, my dear boy! cried Jucundus, hastening to explain what he considered the cause of his sudden annoyance; listen, just one moment, Agellius, if you can. Dear, dear, how I wish I knew where to find you! What _is_ the matter? I m not treating her ill, I m not indeed. I have not had any notion at all even of hinting that you should leave her, unless you both wished the bargain rescinded. No, but it is a great rise for her; you are a Roman, with property, with position in the place; she s a stranger, and without a dower: nobody knows whence she came, or anything about her. She ought to have no difficulty about it, and I am confident will have none. O my good, dear uncle! O Jucundus, Jucundus! cried Agellius, is it possible? do my ears hear right? What is it you ask me to do? and he burst into tears. Is it conceivable, he said, with energy, that you are in earnest in recommending me I say in recommending me a marriage which really would be no marriage at all? Here is some very great mistake, said Jucundus, angrily; it arises, Agellius, from your ignorance of the world. You must be thinking I recommend you mere _contubernium_, as the lawyers call it. Well, I confess I did think of that for a moment, it occurred to me; I should have liked to have mentioned it, but knowing how preposterously touchy and skittish you are on supposed points of honour, or sentiment, or romance, or of something or other indescribable, I said not one word about that. I have only wished to consult for your comfort, present and future. You don t do me justice, Agellius. I have been attempting to smooth your way. You _must_ act according to the received usages of society! you cannot make a world for yourself. Here have I proposed three or four ways for your proceeding: you will have none of them. What _will_ you have? I thought you didn t like ceremonies; I thought you did not like the established ways. Go, then, do it in the old fashion; kill your sheep, knead your meal, light your torches, sing your song, summon your flamen, if he ll come. Any how, take your choice; do it either with religion or without. O Jucundus! said the poor fellow, am I then come to this? and he could say no more. His distress was not greater than his uncle s disappointment, perplexity, and annoyance. The latter had been making everything easy for Agellius, and he was striking, do what he would, on hidden, inexplicable impediments, whichever way he moved. He got more and more angry the more he thought about it. An unreasonable, irrational coxcomb! He had heard a great deal of the portentous stubbornness of a Christian, and now he understood what it was. It was in his blood, he saw; an offensive, sour humour, tainting him from head to foot. A very different recompense had he deserved. There had he come all the way from his home from purely disinterested feelings. He had no motive whatever, but a simple desire of his nephew s welfare; what other motive could he have? Let Agellius go to the crows, he thought, if he will; what is it to me if he is seized for a Christian, hung up like a dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the _cloaca_ of the prison? What care I if he is made a hy na s breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned by a single jolly companion, for the exposure of his nephew. But a man can t be saved against his will. Here am I, full of expedients and resources for his good; there is he, throwing cold water on everything, and making difficulties as if he loved them. It s his abominable pride, that s the pith of the matter. He could not have behaved worse though I had played the bully with him, and had reproached him with his Christianity. But I have studiously avoided every subject which could put his back up. He s a very Typhon or Enceladus for pride. Here he d give his ears to have done with Christianity; he wants to have this Callista; he wants to buy her at the price of his religion; but he d rather be burned than say, I ve changed! Let him reap as he has sown; why should I coax him further to be merciful to himself? Well Agellius, he said aloud, I m going back. Agellius, on the other hand, had his own thoughts; and the most urgent of them at the moment was sorrow that he had hurt his uncle. He was sincerely attached to him, in consequence of his faithful guardianship, his many acts of kindness, the reminiscences of childhood, nay, the love he bore to the good points of his character. To him he owed his education and his respectable position. He could not bear his anger, and he had a fear of his authority; but what was to be done? Jucundus, in utter insensibility to certain instincts and rules which in Christianity are first principles, had, without intending it, been greatly dishonouring Agellius, and his passion, and the object of it. Uncle and nephew had been treading on each other s toes, and each was wincing under the mischance. It was Agellius s place, as the younger, to make advances, if he could, to an adjustment of the misunderstanding; and he wished to find some middle way. And, also, it is evident he had another inducement besides his tenderness to Jucundus to urge him to do so. In truth, Callista exerted a tremendous sway over him. The conversation which had just passed ought to have opened his eyes, and made him understand that the very first step in any negotiations between them was her _bon fide_ conversion. It was evident he could not, he literally had not the power of marrying her as a heathen. Roman might marry a Roman; but a degradation of each party in the transaction was the only way by which a Roman could make any sort of marriage with a Greek. If she were converted, they would be both of them under the rules of the Catholic Church. But what prospect was there of so happy an event? What had ever fallen from her lips which looked that way? Could not a clever girl throw herself into the part of Alcestis, or chant the majestic verses of Cleanthes, or extemporize a hymn upon the spring, or hold an argument on the _pulchrum_ and _utile_, without having any leaning towards Christianity? A calm, sweet voice, a noble air, an expressive countenance, refined and decorous manners, were these specific indications of heavenly grace? Ah, poor Agellius! a fascination is upon you; and so you are thinking of some middle term, which is to reconcile your uncle and you; and therefore you begin as follows: I see by your silence, Jucundus, that you are displeased with me, you who are always so kind. Well, it comes from my ignorance of things; it does indeed. I ask your forgiveness for anything which seemed ungrateful in my behaviour, though there is not ingratitude in my heart. I am too much of a boy to see things beforehand, and to see them in all their bearings. You took me by surprise by talking on the subject which led to our misunderstanding. I will not conceal for an instant that I like Callista very much; and that the more I see her, I like her the more. It strikes me that, if you break the matter to Aristo, he and I might have some talk together, and understand each other. Jucundus was hot-tempered, but easily pacified; and he really did wish to be on confidential terms with his nephew at the present crisis; so he caught at his apology. Now you speak like a reasonable fellow, Agellius, he answered. Certainly, I will speak to Aristo, as you wish; and on this question of _consuetudo_ or prescription. Well, don t begin looking queer again. I mean I will speak to him on the whole question and its details. He and I will talk together for our respective principals. We shall soon come to terms, I warrant you; and then _you_ shall talk with him. Come, show me round your fields, he continued, and let me see how you will be able to present things to your bride. A very pretty property it is. I it was who was the means of your father thinking of it. You have heard me say so before now, and all the circumstances. He was at Carthage at this time, undecided what to do with himself. It so happened that Julia Clara s estates were just then in the market. An enormous windfall her estates were. Old Didius was emperor just before my time; he gave all his estates to his daughter as soon as he assumed the purple. Poor lady! she did not enjoy them long; Severus confiscated the whole, not, however, for the benefit of the state, but of the _res privata_. They are so large in Africa alone, that, as you know, you are under a special procurator. Well, they did not come into the market at once; the existing farmers were retained. Marcus Juventius farmed a very considerable portion of them; they were contiguous, and dovetailed into his own lands, and accordingly, when he got into trouble, and had to sell his leases, there were certain odds and ends about Sicca which it was proposed to lease piecemeal. Your employer, Varius, would have given any money for them, but I was beforehand with him. Nothing like being on the spot; he was on business of the proconsul at Adrumetum. I sent off Hispa instantly to Strabo; not an hour s delay after I heard of it. The sale was at Carthage; he went to his old commander, who used his influence, and the thing was done. I venture to say there s not such a snug little farm in all Africa; and I am sanguine we shall get a renewal, though Varius will do his utmost to outbid us. Ah, my dear Agellius, if there is but a suspicion you are not a thorough-going Roman! Well, well, here! ease me through this gate, Agellius; I don t know what s come to the gate since I was here. Indeed! yes! you have improved this very much. That small arbour is delicious; but you want an image, an Apollo or a Diana. Ah! do now stop for a moment; why are you going forward at such a pace? I ll give you an image: it shall be one that you will really like. Well, you won t have it? I beg you ten thousand pardons. Ha, ha! I mean nothing. Ha, ha, ha! Oh, what an odd world it is! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, I am keeping you from your labourers. Ha, ha, ha! And having thus smoothed his own ruffled temper, and set things right, as he considered, with Agellius, the old pagan took his journey homewards, assuring Agellius that he would make all things clear for him in a very short time, and telling him to be sure to make a call upon Aristo before the ensuing calends. CHAPTER X. THE DIVINE CALLISTA. The day came which Agellius had fixed for paying his promised visit to Aristo. It is not to be denied that, in the interval, the difficulties of the business which occasioned his visit had increased upon his apprehensions. Callista was not yet a Christian, nor was there any reason for saying that a proposal of marriage would make her one; and a strange sort of convert she would be, if it did. He would not suffer himself to dwell upon difficulties which he was determined never should be realized. No; of course a heathen he could not marry, but a heathen Callista should not be. He did not see the process, but he was convinced she would become a Christian. Yet somehow so it was, that, if he was able to stultify his reason, he did not quite succeed to his satisfaction with his conscience. Every morning found him less satisfied with himself, and more disposed to repent of having allowed his uncle to enter on the subject with Aristo. But it was a thing done and over; he must either awkwardly back out, or he must go on. His middle term, as he hastily had considered it, was nothing else than siding with his uncle, and committing himself to go all lengths, unless some difficulty rose with the other party. Yet could he really wish that the step had not been taken? Was it not plain that if he was to put away Callista from his affections, he must never go near her? And was he to fall back on his drear solitude, and lose that outlet of thought and relief of mind which he had lately found in the society of his Greek friends? We may easily believe that he was not very peaceful in heart when he set out on that morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, which he could not justify by argument, that there was in Callista a promise of something higher than anything she yet was. He felt a strange sympathy with her, which certainly unless he utterly deceived himself, was not based on anything merely natural or human, a sympathy the more remarkable from the contrariety which existed between them in matters of religious belief. And hope having blown this large and splendid bubble, sent it sailing away, and it rose upon the buoyant atmosphere of youth, beautiful to behold. And yet, as Agellius ascended the long flight of marble steps which led the foot-passenger up into that fair city, while the morning sun was glancing across them, and surveyed the outline of the many sumptuous buildings which crested and encircled the hill, did he not know full well that iniquity was written on its very walls, and spoke a solemn warning to a Christian heart to go out of it, to flee it, not to take up a home in it, not to make alliance with anything in it? Did he not know from experience full well that, when he got into it, his glance could no longer be unrestrained, or his air free; but that it would be necessary for him to keep a control upon his senses, and painfully guard himself against what must either be a terror to him and an abhorrence, or a temptation? Enter in imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle s anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian s heart and a Christian s hope. Well is it for us, dear reader, that we in this age do not experience nay, a blessed thing that we cannot even frame to ourselves in imagination the actual details of evil which hung as an atmosphere over the cities of Pagan Rome. An Apostle calls the tongue a fire, a world of iniquity, untameable, a restless evil, a deadly poison; and surely what he says applies to hideous thoughts represented to the eye, as well as when they are made to strike upon the ear. Unfortunate Agellius! what takes you into the city this morning? Doubtless some urgent, compulsive duty; otherwise you would not surely be threading its lanes or taking the circuit of its porticoes, amid sights which now shock and now allure; fearful sights not here and there, but on the stateliest structures and in the meanest hovels, in public offices and private houses, in central spots and at the corners of the streets, in bazaars and shops and house-doors, in the rudest workmanship and in the highest art, in letters or in emblems or in paintings the insignia and the pomp of Satan and of Belial, of a reign of corruption and a revel of idolatry which you can neither endure nor escape. Wherever you go it is all the same; in the police-court on the right, in the military station on the left, in the crowd around the temple, in the procession with its victims and its worshippers who walk to music, in the language of the noisy market-people; wherever you go, you are accosted, confronted, publicly, shamelessly, now as if a precept of religion, now as if a homage to nature, by all which, as a Christian, you shrink from and abjure. It is no accident of the season or of the day; it is the continuous tradition of some thousands of years; it is the very orthodoxy of the myriads who have lived and died there. There was a region once, in an early age, lying upon the Eastern Sea, which is said at length to have vomited out its inhabitants for their frightful iniquity. They, thus cast forth, took ship, and passed over to the southern coast; and then, gradually settling and spreading into the interior, they peopled the woody plains and fertile slopes of Africa, and filled it with their cities. Sicca is one of these set up in sin; and at the time of which we write that sin was basking under the sun, and rioting and extending itself to its amplest dimensions, like some glittering serpent or spotted pard of the neighbourhood, without interposition from heaven or earth in correction of so awful a degradation. In such scenes of unspeakable pollution, our Christian forefathers perforce lived; through such a scene, though not taking part in it, Agellius, blessed with a country home, is unnecessarily passing. He has reached the house, or rather the floor, to which he has been making his way. It is at the back of the city, where the rock is steep; and it looks out upon the plain and the mountain range to the north. Its inmates, Aristo and Callista, are engaged in their ordinary work of moulding or carving, painting or gilding the various articles which the temples or the private shrines of the established religion required. Aristo has received from Jucundus the overtures which Agellius had commissioned him to make, and finds, as he anticipated, that they are no great news to his sister. She perfectly understands what is going on, but does not care to speak much upon it, till Agellius makes his appearance. As they sit at work, Aristo speaks: Agellius will make his appearance here this morning. I say, Callista, what can he be coming for? Why, if your news be true, that the Christians are coming into trouble, of course he means to purchase, as a blessing on him, some of these bits of gods. You are sharp enough, my little sister, answered Aristo, to know perfectly well who is the goddess he is desirous

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How many times the word 'peaceful' appears in the text?