“By backbiting, or by poison, base pander!” said Julian; “these are thy means of vengeance. But mark me--I know your vile purpose respecting a lady who is too worthy that her name should be uttered in such a worthless ear. Thou hast done me one injury, and thou see’st I have repaid it. But prosecute this farther villainy, and be assured I will put thee to death like a foul reptile, whose very slaver is fatal to humanity. Rely upon this, as if Machiavel had sworn it; for so surely as you keep your purpose, so surely will I prosecute my revenge.--Follow me, Lance, and leave him to think on what I have told him.” Lance had, after the first shock, sustained a very easy part in this recontre; for all he had to do, was to point the butt of his whip, in the manner of a gun, at the intimidated Frenchman, who, lying on his back, and gazing at random on the skies, had as little the power or purpose of resistance, as any pig which had ever come under his own slaughter-knife. Summoned by his master from the easy duty of guarding such an unresisting prisoner, Lance remounted his horse, and they both rode off, leaving their discomfited antagonists to console themselves for their misadventure as they best could. But consolation was hard to come by in the circumstances. The French artist had to lament the dispersion of his spices, and the destruction of his magazine of sauces--an enchanter despoiled of his magic wand and talisman, could scarce have been in more desperate extremity. Chiffinch had to mourn the downfall of his intrigue, and its premature discovery. “To this fellow, at least,” he thought, “I can have bragged none--here my evil genius alone has betrayed me. With this infernal discovery, which may cost me so dear on all hands, champagne had nought to do. If there be a flask left unbroken, I will drink it after dinner, and try if it may not even yet suggest some scheme of redemption and of revenge.” With this manly resolution, he prosecuted his journey to London. CHAPTER XXVIII A man so various, that he seem’d to be Not one, but all mankind’s epitome; Stiff in opinions--always in the wrong-- Was everything by starts, but nothing long; Who, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon; Then, all for women, painting, fiddling, drinking; Besides a thousand freaks that died in thinking. --DRYDEN.