Two days were spent in arranging and preparing for the voyages, and at the final parting they all took affectionate farewells of one another, especially Arnoldo, Periander, and Auristella: although there was great warmth in Arnoldo's manner, and although the excess of his affection was very evident, yet it was expressed in so graceful and delicate a way, that it did not offend Periander. Transila wept, nor were the eyes of old Maurice dry, nor those of Ladislaus; Ricla sighed, and Constance was much affected, whilst her father and brother did not remain unmoved: Rutilio, already arrayed in his hermit robe, went from one to another, bidding adieu to each, and mingling his sobs and tears with theirs. At length, invited by the calm weather and favouring gales, (for the wind served equally well for both the voyages,) they embarked, set sail, and Rutilio, from the hermitage hill, watched their departure, and followed them with a thousand blessings. And here the author of this wandering story ends his second book. FOOTNOTES: [L] This and the apostrophe of the Moorish Christian in the Third Book to Philip III. fixes a date which corresponds ill with the North Country Kings of Romance. [Illustration] BOOK III. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER I. As our minds are ever in perpetual motion, and can neither stop nor rest except by God, who is our centre, and for whom we are created, it is no marvel that our thoughts should change,--that this should take, that, leave; one should go on, another forget; and he who is the most quiet, will go on best, if he be not so from want of intellect. I have made these observations as an excuse for the conduct of Arnoldo, and the apparent facility with which he relinquished in one moment the object that had occupied him so long; though one can hardly say that he _relinquished_ it, for he only put it off for a time, because honour, the ruling feeling of all human actions, called him away; and this he explained to Periander on the night before their parting, talking with him apart from the others in the hermitage island. There he entreated him (for he who asks for a thing he greatly needs rather begs than asks) to look well after his sister Auristella, and preserve her for him, to be the queen of Denmark; and that if fortune should prove adverse, and he should not recover his kingdom, but lose his life in the endeavour, Auristella should be considered as the widow of a prince, and as such should choose a husband; and frequently he repeated, as he had often done before, that she well deserved to be the greatest queen in the world.