He thought over the past, and congratulated himself upon his vast renown; for Captain Barecolt was one of those happy men who have a facility of believing their own fictions. He was convinced that, if he could but count them up, he had performed more feats of valour and slaughtered more bloody enemies than Amadis de Gaul, Launcelot of the Lake, the Admiral de Coligni, or the Duke of Alva. It was true he thought such events soon passed from the minds of great men, being common occurrences with them, so that he could not remember one-half of what he had done, which he only regretted for the sake of society; but he was quite sure that whenever opportunities served he should be found superior to any of the great captains of the age, and that merit and time must lead him to the highest distinction. This led him on to futurity, and he made up his mind that the first thing he would do should be to save the king's life when attacked on every side by fifteen or sixteen horsemen. For this, of course, he would be knighted on the spot, and receive the command of a regiment of horse, with which he proposed to march at once to London, depose the lord mayor, and, proceeding to the Parliament-house, dissolve the Parliament, seize the speaker and twelve of the principal members, and hang Sir Harry Vane. This, he thought, would be work enough for one day; but the next morning he would march out with all the cavaliers he could collect, defeat the Earl of Essex on one side, rout Waller on the other, and then, with his prisoners, proceed to head-quarters, where, of course, he would be appointed general-in-chief, and in that capacity would bring the king to London. What he would do next was a matter of serious consideration, for, the war being at an end, Othello's occupation was gone; and as, during all this time he had made sundry applications to his friend the tankard, his imagination was becoming somewhat heavy on the wing, so that, in a minute or two after he fell sound asleep, while the pipe dropped unnoticed from his hand, and fractured its collar-bone upon the floor. He had scarcely been asleep ten minutes when the door of the room slowly opened, and a round head covered with short curls was thrust in, with part of a burly pair of shoulders. The door was then pushed partly open, and in walked a stout man in a good brown coat, who, advancing quietly to the side of Captain Deciduous Barecolt, laid his hand upon his arm. Now, what Captain Barecolt was dreaming of at that moment it is impossible for the author of these pages to tell; but his vision would appear to have been pugnacious, for the instant the intruder's grasp touched his left arm he started up, and, stretching out his right hand to a pistol which lay between the tankard and himself on the table, snatched it up, levelled it at the head of his visiter, and pulled the trigger.