“But--but--but--” he cried in a splutter, “you leave your convent without permission, you ride alone into dangerous places, you take up with strangers along the road, and you dare--you dare, madam, to bring them here to me! By my hand, madam, this is intolerable. You shall go back to your convent immediately, and you shall be whipped.” There never was such a staunch glance, I think, as that with which the Countess Sylvia met the petulant anger of her parent. “This is feeble talk, my lord,” she said boldly. “I have not adventured a five days’ journey upon an old horse of most ridiculous paces to hear such speaking as this. Many rumours have reached me in my convent of what was toward in the world. I have even heard of the design of the infamous King John to turn you forth of this castle, which you and yours, my lord, have held by right of main for four hundred years. Answer me, my lord, is not this so? is not this King John of Castile about to take your manor?” “Do not speak to me, madam,” said the duke. “You shall go back to your convent at once. And as for these precious villains that you have picked out of some infamous venta, they shall spend the rest of their lives in a prison.” The angry duke, having directed a glance of the most desperate contempt at the Count of Nullepart and myself, sent the dwarf for Don Luiz, even as he had done on the previous occasion. “Ods, my life, madam,” he said, “I think you must be mad!” When that slow-moving, austere, and portentous Don Luiz, who was yet so girt about with arrogance and dignity, appeared in the wake of the natural, it was plain enough that he was no other than that fat man the recollection of whom had moved the little countess to such a deep disgust. As he entered with a grunt and a wheeze, she clenched her hands and looked upon him with the most disdainful effrontery, although she spoke not a word. “Here is a matter, Luiz; here is a matter,” cried the duke, breaking out into a wail. “Mark yon little venom there; do you mark her? Run away, Luiz; run away from her convent. Do you have her taken back immediately, and she is to be flogged soundly.” “Your grace shall be obeyed,” said Don Luiz heavily. “And further, Luiz,” said the old grandee, who apparently was stimulated by the presence of his trusty gentleman-usher, “these two villainous rapscallions whom she hath picked out of some hedge tavern to accompany her, and who, as you see, have had effrontery to beard us in our own apartment, do you see to it, Luiz, that they are kept in a solitary dungeon for the remainder of their lives. Or I put it to you, Luiz--I shall cherish your advice upon this matter--would it be properer to have them hanged at once for such a piece of mischief?”