hless cavalry. The artillery seems good. The infantry are
fine men--very fine men. They have a "woodeny" movement; but that's in
the nature of the case: tremendous discipline alone gives homogeneity to
all those nationalities. Somehow they get beaten. I doubt whether
anything will beat their cavalry.'

'They are useless in street-fighting,' said Carlo.

'Oh, street-fighting!' Captain Gambier vented a soldier's disgust at the
notion. 'They're not in Paris. Will you step forward?'

Just then the tall Greek approached the party of English. The
introduction was delayed.

He was addressed by the fair lady, in the island tongue, as 'Mr.
Pericles.' She thanked him for his extreme condescension in deigning to
notice them. But whatever his condescension had been, it did not extend
to an admitted acquaintance with the poor speech of the land of fogs. An
exhibition of aching deafness was presented to her so resolutely, that at
last she faltered, 'What! have you forgotten English, Mr. Pericles? You
spoke it the other day.'

'It is ze language of necessity--of commerce,' he replied.

'But, surely, Mr. Pericles, you dare not presume to tell me you choose to
be ignorant of it whenever you please?'

'I do not take grits into ze teeth, madame; no more.' 'But you speak it
perfectly.'

'Perfect it may be, for ze transactions of commerce. I wish to keep my
teez.'

'Alas!' said the lady, compelled, 'I must endeavour to swim in French.'

'At your service, madame,' quoth the Greek, with an immediate doubling of
the length of his body.

Carlo heard little more than he knew; but the confirmation of what we
know will sometimes instigate us like fresh intelligence, and the lover's
heart was quick to apprehend far more than he knew in one direction. He
divined instantaneously that the English-Austrian spoken of by Barto
Rizzo was the officer sitting on horseback within half-a-dozen yards of
him. The certainty of the thought cramped his muscles. For the rest, it
became clear to him that the attempt of the millionaire connoisseur to
carry off Vittoria had received the tacit sanction of the Austrian
authorities; for reasons quite explicable, Mr. Pericles, as the English
lady called him, distinctly hinted it, while affirming with vehement
self-laudation that his scheme had succeeded for the vindication of Art.

'The opera you will hear zis night,' he said, 'will be hissed. You will
hear a chorus of screech-owls to each song of that poor