--"

"In search?" cries the jolly Jew banker,--"for the philosopher's stone?
You had all that man could want a week since, except that. Search no
more, but come home with me; and we will have a night as of the gods on
Olympus!"

"My dearest fellow, I am looking for two ladies!"

"Two? ah, rogue! shall not one suffice?"

"Don't, my dearest fellow! I am looking for two English ladies."

"Potz! You shall find two hundred in the hotels, ugly and fair; but the
two fairest are gone this two hours."

"When?--which?" cries Stangrave, suspecting at once.

"Sabina Mellot, and a Sultana--I thought her of The Nation, and would
have offered my hand on the spot: but Madame Mellot says she is a
Gentile."

"Gone? And you have seen them! Where?"

"To Bertrich. They had luncheon with my mother, and then started by
private post."

"I must follow."

"_Ach lieber_? But it will be dark in an hour."

"What matter?"

"But you shall find them to-morrow, just as well as to-day. They stay at
Bertrich for a fortnight more. They have been there now a month, and
only left it last week for a pleasure tour, across to the Ahrthal, and
so back by Andernach."

"Why did they leave Coblentz, then, in such hot haste?"

"Ah, the ladies never give reasons. There were letters waiting for them
at our house; and no sooner read, but they leaped up, and would forth.
Come home now, and go by the steamer to-morrow morning."

"Impossible! most hospitable of Israelites."

"To go to-night,--for see the clouds!--Not a postilion will dare to
leave Coblentz, under that quick-coming _allgemein und ungeheuer
henker-hund-und-teufel's-gewitter_."

Stangrave looked up, growling; and gave in. A Rhine-storm was rolling up
rapidly.

"They will be caught in it."

"No. They are far beyond its path by now; while you shall endure the
whole visitation; and if you try to proceed, pass the night in a
flea-pestered post-house, or in a ditch of water."

So Stangrave went home with Herr Salomon, and heard from him, amid
clouds of Latakia, of wars and rumours of wars, distress of nations, and
perplexity, seen by the light, not of the Gospel, but of the
stock-exchange; while the storm fell without in lightning, hail, rain,
of right Rhenish potency.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER.

We must go back a week or so, to England, and to the last day of
September. The world is shooting partridges, and asking nervously, when
it comes home, What new