"And when may I renew my visit, dearest Prudentia?"
"To-morrow at noon—exactly at noon," she replied, tendering her cheek, and in another moment I found the secret door closed upon me. I was on the dark landing-place of the stair, and groped my way to that dreary apartment, where Ian Dhu, M'Alpine Roy, and strong Phadrig Mhor, were sleeping on the floor, side by side in their plaids, with their basket-hilted claymores for pillows.
CHAPTER XV.
MY GODDESS DECEIVES ME—I QUARREL WITH THE HAUSMEISTER, AND
RUN HIM THROUGH THE BODY.
After breakfasting on toast and tankard, like the English, and being rallied by Ian on my abstraction and silence; after the morning exercise with pike and musket was past, when the first note of the clock indicated the hour of noon, I presented myself at Prudentia's, and was admitted, but I knocked thrice on her chamber-door without hearing her musical voice saying, "Señor, enter."
"She is asleep—it will be a theatrical habit," said I, gently opening the door and venturing in.
The chamber was silent! The bed had not been slept on, and was stripped of its curtains; the furniture was in confusion; the mantelpiece and tables were deprived of their ornaments; every thing indicated a hurried departure; and a note addressed to me lay on the little playing table, which still remained near the sofa, where I had left it twelve hours before. The note was addressed—
"To the Ensign. Señor Don Philip, these.
"Señor—I have been discovered, and forced to fly! My safety demands it, and thus, before you read these lines, I shall be, Heaven knows how far, on the road to Vienna. I could stay no longer in Glückstadt, for the truce is at an end, and your troops march in a day or two. When you imagine the grief I feel, in being thus separated from you, dearest señor, you will pardon this sudden flight, and excuse me returning you those doubloons and dollars, in place of which I have left you a lock of my beautiful hair—a lock which I will redeem; for if ever you should have the ill-fortune to be taken prisoner, and see Vienna, fail not to seek the Señora Bandolo, at the theatre, near the Scottish convent, and so, with a deluge of tears, you are committed to the protection of God by your best friend,
"PRUDENTIA."