they
could be heard no longer, and then exclaimed to Jerningham, who entered,
"_Victoria! victoria! magna est veritas et praevalebit!_--Had I told
the villain a word of a lie, he is so familiar with all the regions of
falsehood--his whole life has been such an absolute imposture, that I
had stood detected in an instant; but I told him truth, and that was the
only means of deceiving him. Victoria! my dear Jerningham, I am prouder
of cheating Christian, than I should have been of circumventing a
minister of state."

"Your Grace holds his wisdom very high," said the attendant.

"His cunning, at least, I do, which, in Court affairs, often takes the
weather-gage of wisdom,--as in Yarmouth Roads a herring-buss will baffle
a frigate. He shall not return to London if I can help it, until all
these intrigues are over."

As his Grace spoke, the Colonel, after whom he had repeatedly made
inquiry, was announced by a gentleman of his household. "He met not
Christian, did he?" said the Duke hastily.

"No, my lord," returned the domestic, "the Colonel came by the old
garden staircase."

"I judged as much," replied the Duke; "'tis an owl that will not take
wing in daylight, when there is a thicket left to skulk under. Here he
comes from threading lane, vault, and ruinous alley, very near ominous a
creature as the fowl of ill augury which he resembles."

The Colonel, to whom no other appellation seemed to be given, than that
which belonged to his military station, now entered the apartment. He
was tall, strongly built, and past the middle period of life, and his
countenance, but for the heavy cloud which dwelt upon it, might have
been pronounced a handsome one. While the Duke spoke to him, either from
humility or some other cause, his large serious eye was cast down upon
the ground; but he raised it when he answered, with a keen look of
earnest observation. His dress was very plain, and more allied to that
of the Puritans than of the Cavaliers of the time; a shadowy black hat,
like the Spanish sombrero; a large black mantle or cloak, and a long
rapier, gave him something the air of a Castilione, to which his gravity
and stiffness of demeanour added considerable strength.

"Well, Colonel," said the Duke, "we have been long strangers--how have
matters gone with you?"

"As with other men of action in quiet times," answered the colonel, "or
as a good war-caper[*] that lies high and dry in a muddy creek, till
seams and planks are r