"Now therefore," I continued, here drawing largely upon my invention, for a purpose, as you are to see—"now therefore, it is one of the miracles of our nature that a man beset by this dreadful distemper, being set in juxtaposition with a man of exceeding spareness, but otherwise sound in his members and organs, the infirmity of the one is in a manner fortified by the wholeness of the other, or as Spegelius hath it in his renowned tractate, the debility of the one is engraffed and mingled with the virtue of the other. The trial of this remedy is attended with sundry notable perils and incommodities, wherefore it is not to be lightly undertaken, and I leave it for this present until we have made a proper experimentum of the more vulgar means." The captain heard this with great attention, and made me many compliments on the profundity of my learning, though he might have read Spegelius his tractate from cover to cover without finding the passage that I gave forth with so great unction. Leaving the precious seed to germinate, I betook myself away in high contentment, though not without a qualm and tremor at the lengths whereto my audacity was carrying me. Having sought my faithful attendant, I dispatched him to make sundry purchases at the armourers of the town, a knife at one, a dagger at another, small weapons in goodly number, but not more than one weapon at any one shop, lest suspicion or curiosity should be excited. These weapons, when he brought them to the inn, I bade him enfold them in strips of cloth I held in readiness, and wrap them in two several parcels. While this was adoing, I took my way to the sea-wall, noting very particularly the positions of the four galleys, the extent of water betwixt them and the shore, the manner in which the shore curved to a point, and all other information that was necessary to the execution of my plan. As I walked hither and thither, I was observed by a captain of soldiers that chanced, as it seemed, to be taking the air by the sea-wall, and who accosted me, asking me with a kind of truculency what I did there. "Noble excellency," I replied, "I am but a poor student of medicine of the French nation, making a brief sojourn in this your town." "A Frenchman, and I warrant me a spy!" he cried, and hailing a soldier from the guard-house near by, he assured me that I should soon company with rats and beetles in the castle dungeon. "Beseech you, señor," I said, "my illustrious cousin Don Ygnacio de Acosta, captain of the royal galleys, will have somewhat to say to that. Come with me straightway to his house, and we shall learn if such immodesty of language pleasures him."