As for me, my confusion must have led to a very erroneous impression of my real feelings, and I perceived Sir George anxious to turn the channel of the conversation.
“You see but little of your host, O’Malley,” he resumed; “he is ever from home; but I believe nothing could be kinder than his arrangements for you. You are aware that he kidnapped you from us? I had sent Forbes over to bring you to us; your room was prepared, everything in readiness, when he met your man Mike, setting forth upon a mule, who told him you had just taken your departure for the villa. We both had our claim upon you and, I believe, pretty much on the same score. By-the-bye, you have not seen Lucy since your arrival. I never knew it till yesterday, when I asked if she did not find you altered.”
I blundered out some absurd reply, blushed, corrected myself, and got confused. Sir George attributing this, doubtless, to my weak state, rose soon after, and taking Power along with him, remarked as he left the room,—
“We are too much for him yet, I see that; so we’ll leave him quiet some time longer.”
Thanking him in my heart for his true appreciation of my state, I sank back upon my pillow to think over all I had heard and seen.
“Well, Mister Charles,” said Mike as he came forward with a smile, “I suppose you heard the news? The Fourteenth bate the French down at Merca there, and took seventy prisoners; but sure it’s little good it’ll do, after all.”
“And why not, Mike?”
“Musha! isn’t Boney coming himself? He’s bringing all the Roossians down with him, and going to destroy us entirely.”
“Not at all, man; you mistake. He’s nothing to do with Russia, and has quite enough on his hands at this moment.”
“God grant it was truth you were talking! But, you see, I read it myself in the papers (or Sergeant Haggarty did, which is the same thing) that he’s coming with the Cusacks.”