“I am, put me to the test!”
“Then depart with the first dawn of day for Ma**id, without taking leave of the Countess.”
The Irishman could not have chosen a severer trial, nor demanded a greater sacrifice. The combat which I had to fight with my heart, before I could come to a resolution, was short but dreadful.---I promised the Irishman to execute his will.
“Well!” said he, “then hear what measures you are to take. As soon as you shall be arrived at Ma**id, you must, without delay, wait upon the Prime Minister, Oliv**ez, and the Secretary of State Suma*ez, but take care not to discover your political views to either of them; pretend that you intend to stay some time at Ma**id merely for the sake of amusement. Repeat your visits till you have gained their confidence. Your winning demeanor, my Lord, and your intimate connection with Vascon*ellos will render this conquest easy.---Farewell, at Ma**id we shall meet again!”
We parted. The Irishman returned once more. “Your manner of life while at Ma**id,” said he, “will require great expences, and you must be well provided with money. I have taken care that you shall be well supplied with that needful article. You will find in your apartment a sum which you may dispose of at pleasure.” So saying, he left me suddenly.
On coming home, I found on my table two bags with money, each of them containing a thousand ducats. Pietro told me they had been brought by a servant of the Irish Captain.
No one will doubt that I was now entirely devoted to the Irishman. By his discourse at the burying place he had persuaded, and by his liberality convinced me, that I could not do better than to let myself be guided entirely by him; and as I at first had been determined to this by the conquering superiority of his soul, so I was now confirmed in it by the applause of my reason. Nay, if the Irishman should now have offered to break off all connection with me, I should have courted his friendship, so much had I been charmed by the profound wisdom of his discourse. Not the least vestige of mistrust against his secret power was left in my soul, and the very regard for philosophy which but lately had prejudiced me against him, was now one of the strongest bonds that chained me to him. How agreeably was I surprised to find in Reason herself, whom I formerly had thought to be the principal adversary of the belief in miracles, the most convincing arguments for the same, and to have been conquered with the same weapons which I had been fighting with against the Irishman, without having the least reason to reproach him with having had recourse to any stratagem whatever. The frankness and strength of argument which distinguished every step of his philosophical instruction, were to me the most unexceptionable security for the justness of the result. If he had delivered his arguments in a flowery and mysterious language, supported by the charms of declamation, then I should certainly have suspected them; however he had made use of the cool, simple and clear language of reason, divested of all sophistical artifices; started from principles which are generally received, drew no conclusions to which he was not entitled by his premises, combatted errors and prejudices upon which he could have founded surreptious conclusions; nay, it appeared as if he, unmindful of what he was to prove, had left it entirely to the course of his impartial inquiry whither it would lead him, and I beheld myself, with astonishment, on the conclusion of it, at the mark from which the road we had taken threatened to lead us astray.
I cannot describe the wonderful bold ideas which the instructions I had received produced in my mind, nor the awfully agreeable sensations which those ideas were accompanied with. The rising sun surprised me in that indescribable state of mind, and reminded me by his rays, that it was time to set off.
(To be continued.)
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