“I am astonished!” said the Duke. “That villain, Jerningham—I will have the scoundrel’s blood!”
“Nay, never abuse Jerningham for the matter,” said the Unknown; “but lament your own unhappy engagements. While you, my Lord Duke, were posting northward, in white satin buskins, to toil in the King’s affairs, the right and lawful princess sat weeping in sables in the uncheered solitude to which your absence condemned her. Two days she was disconsolate in vain; on the third came an African enchantress to change the scene for her, and the person for your Grace. Methinks, my lord, this adventure will tell but ill, when some faithful squire shall recount or record the gallant adventures of the second Duke of Buckingham.”
“Fairly bit and bantered to boot,” said the Duke—“the monkey has a turn for satire, too, by all that is piquante.—Hark ye, fair Princess, how dared you adventure on such a trick as you have been accomplice to?”
“Dare, my lord,” answered the stranger; “put the question to others, not to one who fears nothing.”
“By my faith, I believe so; for thy front is bronzed by nature.—Hark ye, once more, mistress—What is your name and condition?”
“My condition I have told you—I am a Mauritanian sorceress by profession, and my name is Zarah,” replied the Eastern maiden.
“But methinks that face, shape, and eyes”—said the Duke—“when didst thou pass for a dancing fairy?—Some such imp thou wert not many days since.”
“My sister you may have seen—my twin sister; but not me, my lord,” answered Zarah.
“Indeed,” said the Duke, “that duplicate of thine, if it was not thy very self, was possessed with a dumb spirit, as thou with a talking one. I am still in the mind that you are the same; and that Satan, always so powerful with your sex, had art enough on our former meeting, to make thee hold thy tongue.”
“Believe what you will of it, my lord,” replied Zarah, “it cannot change the truth.—And now, my lord, I bid you farewell. Have you any commands to Mauritania?”