“If your lordship’s grace will not bawl like an old bull under the moon,” said the little countess ruthlessly, “I will give you the leg of an ortolan. These are great matters we are pledged to consider, and if your lordship’s grace, which mops and mows like an old grey bear that hath no teeth to tear its dinner, intrudes upon our deliberations so unseasonably, we should do better to play at mumchance or to bite our thumbs. Go into a corner and eat a fowl, and leave this assembly to thwart the machinations of the rude Castilian.” “Ay di me!” said the duke, “give me a wing then! This is a nice old age to be so maltreated. Is there no virtue in the whole of the world! Ay di me! I am the most misused parent in Spain. Give me a wing then, proud hulks, give me a wing; and ods my good heart, I will never be a parent again.” His lordship’s grace being presently comforted with the carcass of an ortolan, sat himself down on a stool in a corner of the apartment and began to devour it fiercely. But hardly had the council resumed its deliberations, when Sir Richard Pendragon returned wearing a mien of high authority, and informed his mistress that a messenger was at the gate bearing a cartel from the Castilian. “Do you admit him, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said she. “Let him be brought to our presence. We will hold speech with him.” As the English giant went on this errand, the Count of Nullepart bent across the council board, and whispered in the ear of the Countess Sylvia, “Courteously, courteously, an it like your ladyship. Will madam deign to remember that many a deep wound hath been abated by a fair expression?” “Peace, friend,” said the Countess Sylvia with a queenly look. “My words are as I want them. I speak this Castilian in what sort I choose; and I would have him to know that if I speak him soft he shall yet feel my dagger. I have three hundred men of valiance, and I care not if the rude Castilian were the King of the Russ.” Surely a glance so flashing and a bearing of such high disdain never shone about a mortal creature as those that enhanced this noble thing, as she sat as staunch as an arrow before the council board, awaiting the delivery of the cartel from the most powerful prince in Spain. CHAPTER XVIII OF THE AMBASSADOR OF THE RUDE CASTILIAN PRINCE WHEN the ambassador came into the room, the duke rose from his stool, and having carefully and politely removed the grease from the fingers of his right hand, held out his hand for the cartel in an imperious manner. “Señor Ambassador,” said he, with the inimitable air which requires a grandee of I know not how many quarterings to support, “I understand you to come from our nephew of Castile. I will heed this, his mandate, carefully.” Upon receiving the parchment sealed massively in wax he removed the grease from the fingers of his left hand and proceeded with patient dignity to peruse the challenge.