tamene stuns his man with a blow of
the flat. Cyaxares[165] is very angry, and imprisons them both, not yet
realising their actual fault. It does not matter much to Artamene, who
in prison can think, aloud and in the most beautiful "Phebus," of
Mandane. It matters perhaps a little more to the reader; for a courteous
jailer, Aglatidas, takes the occasion to relate his own woes in a
"History of Aglatidas and Amestris," which completes the second volume
of the First Part in three hundred and fifty mortal pages to itself.

The first volume of the Second Part returns to the main story, or rather
the main series of _recits_; for, Chrisante being not unnaturally
exhausted after talking for a thousand pages or so, Feraulas, another of
Artamene's men, takes up the running. The prisoners are let out, and
Mandane reconciles them, after which--as another but later contemporary
remarks (again of other things, but probably with some reminiscence of
this)--they become much more mortal enemies than before. The
reflections and soliloquies of Artamene recur; but a not unimportant,
although subordinate, new character appears--not as the first example,
but as the foremost representative, in the novel, of the great figure of
the "confidante"--in Martesie, Mandane's chief maid of honour. Nobody,
it is to be hoped, wants an elaborate account of the part she plays, but
it should be said that she plays it with much more spirit and
individuality than her mistress is allowed to show. Then, according to
the general plan of all these books, in which fierce wars and faithful
loves alternate, there is more fighting, and though Artamene is
victorious (as how should he not be, save now and then to prevent
monotony?) he disappears and is thought dead. Of course Mandane cries,
and confesses to the confidante, being entirely "finished" by a very
exquisite letter which Artamene has written before going into the
doubtful battle. However, he is (yet once more, of course) not dead at
all. What (as that most sagacious of men, the elder Mr. Weller, would
have said)'d have become of the other seventeen volumes if he had been?
There is one of the _quiproquos_ or misunderstandings which are as
necessary to this kind of novel as the flirtations and the fisticuffs,
brought about by the persistence of an enemy princess in taking Artamene
for her son Spithridates;[166] but all comes right for the time, and the
hero returns to his friends. The plot, however, thickens. A