"You will believe that, ere all this was mutually explained, more time had elapsed than I take in the telling it; and I could perceive by the voices of the speakers that they had taken seats, and were awaiting, without much impatience, the return of the ferryman. The compassion of the silly child was excited by the severe accident which the stranger described as the origin of his fractures and contusions; nor need I tell you that the persuasive voice and deportment of Don John are calculated to make even a more experienced one than this pretty Ulrica forget his unseemly aspect and indigent apparel." "And all this time the careful gouvernante snored within, and the obsequious aide-de-camp held at the door the bridles of the Mecklenburgers"-- "Precisely. Nor found I the time hang much heavier than the prince; for at first mistrustful, like yourself, that the reconnaissance into which he had beguiled me was a mere pretext, I was not sorry to ascertain, sigh by sigh, and word by word, the grounds on which he stood with the enemy. And you should have heard how artfully he contrived to lead her back to the fêtes of Namur; asking, as with the curiosity of a bumpkin, the whole details of the royal entertainments! No small mind had I to rush in and chuck the hussy into the torrent before me, when I heard the little fiend burst forth into the most genuine and enthusiastic praises of the royal giver of the feast,--'So young, so handsome, so affable, so courteous, so passing the kingliness of kings.' She admitted, moreover, that it was her frantic desire of beholding face to face the hero of Lepanto, which had produced the concession on the part of her kinswoman so severely visited by her father. "'But surely,' pleaded this thoughtless prattler, 'one may admire the noble deportment of a Papist, and perceive the native goodness beaming in his eyes, without peril of salvation? This whole morning hath my father's chaplain (who will be here anon) been giving scripture warrant that I have no right to importune heaven with my prayers for the conversion of Don John:--Yet, as my good aunt justly observes, the great grandson of Mary of Burgundy has his pedestal firm in our hearts, beyond reach of overthrow from all the preachments of the Reformers'"-- "And you did not fling the bridles to the devil, and rush in to the rescue of the unguarded soldier thus mischievously assailed?"--cried Gonzaga.