ed from him to address Durward.

"Follow me," he said, "my bonny Scot, as one chosen by Destiny and a
Monarch to accomplish a bold adventure. All must be got ready, that thou
mayest put foot in stirrup the very instant the bell of Saint Martin's
tolls twelve. One minute sooner, one minute later, were to forfeit the
favourable aspect of the constellations which smile on your adventure."

Thus saying, the King left the apartment, followed by his young
guardsman; and no sooner were they gone than the Astrologer gave way to
very different feelings from those which seemed to animate him during
the royal presence.

"The niggardly slave!" he said, weighing the purse in his hand--for,
being a man of unbounded expense, he had almost constant occasion for
money--"The base, sordid scullion! A coxswain's wife would give more to
know that her husband had crossed the narrow seas in safety. He acquire
any tincture of humane letters!--yes, when prowling foxes and yelling
wolves become musicians. He read the glorious blazoning of the
firmament!--ay, when sordid moles shall become lynxes. Post tot
promissa--after so many promises made, to entice me from the Court of
the magnificent Matthias, where Hun and Turk, Christian and Infidel, the
Czar of Muscovia and the Cham of Tartary themselves, contended to load
me with gifts--doth he think I am to abide in this old castle like a
bullfinch in a cage, fain to sing as oft as he chooses to whistle, and
all for seed and water? Not so--aut inveniam viam, aut faciam--I
will discover or contrive a remedy. The Cardinal Balue is politic and
liberal--this query shall to him, and it shall be his Eminence's own
fault if the stars speak not as he would have them."

He again took the despised guerdon, and weighed it in his hand. "It may
be," he said, "there is some jewel, or pearl of price, concealed in this
paltry case--I have heard he can be liberal even to lavishness, when it
suits his caprice or interest."

He emptied the purse, which contained neither more nor less than ten
gold pieces. The indignation of the Astrologer was extreme.

"Thinks he that for such paltry rate of hire I will practise that
celestial science which I have studied with the Armenian Abbot of
Istrahoff, who had not seen the sun for forty years--with the Greek
Dubravius, who is said to have raised the dead--and have even visited
the Sheik Ebn Hali in his cave in the deserts of Thebais? No, by
Heaven!--he that contemns art sha