“Ah, no!” I sighed, and added insinuatingly, “but I have never read the history of the ill-fated Mary of Scotland without costing myself a tear.”
“Had I been the executioner,” says the Captain, grimly, “there had been no bungling at the lopping of her lovely, wicked head.”
“My dear Captain, you are perfectly convinced of that?” And I searched the harsh man terribly with my eyes.
He lowered his own a point, and coughed to cover his confusion. I had now to tell the Captain of the Corporal’s misfortune. While in the act of doing this, I kept a lookout for his anger, but except for the most delicate little smile that seemed to go crawling round his jaw, his face was as simple and inscrutable as ever.
“I think, madam,” says he, “that I should praise the address you have displayed. For the second time you have outwitted his Majesty the King. But, pray, madam, be careful of the third. The third time is generally crucial.”
“Do I discover a warning or a threat in this, sir?” I pleasantly inquired.
“Only the expression of an honest admiration,” says the Captain, whose kind smile on this occasion appeared to be dancing round his teeth.
The Corporal was released that evening. I regret that this honest man’s opinion of my conduct in this case is not preserved among my archives. I feel sure that had I been able to supply it, it would have won the approbation of the gentle reader.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAPTAIN TRUMPS MY TRICK.
I am now come to some grave adventures. Even at the remote hour at which I here retail them, I hardly know whether to shudder or to smile, so whimsical they were, yet so fraught with consequences of the gravest sort. Indeed, their memory seems a quaint mingling of laughter and dismay. There is, I think, scarcely an event in life that cannot be made food for ridicule by the lightly-minded. In that category I count one, my kind friends tell me, but of the strange duel that was fought at which I presided in my person, of the conflict of wills and passions that befell, of the hopes, the fears, the plottings, the contrivings, the general foxiness of everyone, but most of all of me; the stern contentions that appeared to some of us to turn the whole world topsy-turvy, I could not at the time decide whether to grin or groan at. And faith! even at this date, I am not come to a decision.