"Fourthly, we must look a little beyond the immediate enterprise, and not (if we can help it) saddle Prosper's kingdom with a standing army. For, as Bacon advises, that state stands in danger whose warriors remain in a body and are used to donatives; whereof we see examples in the turk's Janissaries and the Pretorian Bands of Rome.
"And fifthly, we have neither the time nor the money to collect a stronger force. The occasion presses: and fronte capillata est, post haec Occasio calva. Time turns a bald head to us if we miss our moment to catch him by the forelock."
"The Abantes," put in Mr. Grylls, "practised the direct contrary: of whom Homer tells us that they shaved the forepart of their heads, the reason being that their enemies might not grip them by the hair in close fighting. I regret, my dear Sir John, you never warned me that you designed Prosper for a military career. We might have bestowed more attention on the warlike customs and operations of the ancients."
My father sipped his wine and regarded the Vicar benevolently. For closest friends he had two of the most irrelevant thinkers on earth and he delighted to distinguish between their irrelevancies.
"But I would not," he continued, "have you doubt that the prime cause of our expedition is to deliver my lady from the Genoese; or believe that Prosper will press his claims unless she acknowledge them."
"I am wondering," said my uncle, "where you will find your other four men."
"Prosper and I will provide them to-morrow," my father answered, with a careless glance at me. "And now, my friends, we have talked over-long of Corsica and nothing as yet of that companionship which brings us here—it may be for the last time. Priske, you may open another four bottles and leave us. Gervase, take down the book from the cupboard and let the Vicar read to us while the light allows."
"The marker tells me," said the Vicar, taking the book and opening it, "that we left in the midst of Chapter 8—On the Luce or Pike.
"Ay, and so I remember," my uncle agreed.
The Vicar began to read—