Edric’s eyes expressed his admiration, and Pauline’s glowing cheeks proved she saw and understood their meaning. Roderick, however, was not quite so well pleased; he felt himself rebuked, and Roderick did not like to feel himself in the wrong.
“You are too modest,” said he; then turning to Edric, “Edric,” continued he, “have you any idea what is become of Dr. Entwerfen?”—then again addressing himself to Pauline, he added, “Apropos—you will be very much amused with the learned doctor, Mademoiselle de Mallet; but I give you fair notice before you see him, that you must not laugh at him before his face, for Edric is as tenacious of the feelings of his tutor as of his own.”
Pauline’s eyes expressed her approbation of Edric’s delicacy upon this point; and, as they met his, they conveyed more pleasure to his heart than language could express. From this moment Pauline and Edric seemed to understand each other, for they felt there was a community of feeling between them. The mute intelligence of the eyes sometimes says more than whole years of commonplace intercourse; and thus Pauline and Edric felt like old friends, though they had scarcely exchanged half a dozen sentences.
“Was not that the gentleman who relieved me from my swoon?” asked M. de Mallet.
Before Roderick had time to answer, an officer rushed into the room, looking the very image of despair, and, approaching Roderick, bent his knee before him.
“What is the matter?” cried the Monarch sternly. “Speak! if you have committed a fault, you have less to fear from my justice than my mercy, for misplaced lenity only encourages crime.”
“Pardon, Sire!” exclaimed the officer, still kneeling; “but—but—”
“Speak!—no evasion.”
“Your Majesty commanded that we should watch that no harm happened to Dr. Entwerfen, and—and he has been taken by the enemy.”
“Fool! dolt! blockhead!” cried Roderick; and, taking leave of Mr. de Mallet and his daughter, he and Edric hastily quitted the tent.
The balls the Irish King had given the doctor were simply formed of dough, the same as that used in the making of bread, with only the addition of a little bit of quicksilver rolled up in the centre of each. This, the merry Monarch knew, as soon as it was exposed to the action of heat, would make the dumplings dance about, as though they were bewitched; and he anticipated great amusement from seeing the doctor’s exertions to keep them in the pot, and his despair at not being able to do so. To prevent the possibility of mischief, however, he had desired a select guard to keep watch over the unfortunate philosopher, and never to lose sight of him, taking care to prevent, if possible, his being exposed to any danger; and it was to the negligence of these fellows, who did not perform their duty, that the unhappy fate of the doctor was owing.
The moment the doctor had received the fatal balls, he hastened to the cauldron, and, hastily kindling a fire, began to try the experiment. The balls more than answered Roderick’s expectations, for, as soon as they were affected by the heat, they began to jump out of the pot, one after the other, with the most determined perseverance. The doctor was in a violent perspiration from being exposed to the steam of the cauldron; and he threw off his coat to cool himself; his wig also slipped on one side, in his exertions to recover the provoking balls, he being obliged to skip after them with the utmost agility as they rolled bounding along, whilst he had no sooner caught one and put it back into the pot, than another would jump out and begin a new set of vagaries. The doctor, though tired and provoked, did not however relax his labours even for an instant, and he was running, panting and out of breath, after one of these mercurial harlequins, when he was stopped by a rough arm, whilst a man in a gruff voice demanded “what he was doing there?”
The doctor looked up, and finding with horror that he was surrounded by eight or ten armed Spaniards, answered, in trembling accents, “that he was making gunpowder.”
“Gunpowder!” exclaimed one of the men. “But what were you doing with those balls?”
“I was boiling them,” replied the doctor, with great awe.
“You seemed to be playing with them, I think,” resumed the man. “Were you running after them to make gunpowder?”
“Yes, they wouldn’t stay in the pot; and I was obliged to run after them, to catch them.”
The soldiers burst into a horse laugh at this naive reply, and their merriment offered a ridiculous contrast to the doctor’s woeful visage. They now prepared to retire, dragging the doctor with them, totally heedless of his supplications for pardon and declarations of innocence. They declared him to be a spy, and swore that they would hang him as such, as soon as they should get within the town. The soldiers who were appointed to guard the doctor, and who, by indulging in a comfortable game at piquet, had neglected their charge, now came up, and, dismayed at seeing the doctor in custody of a force too considerable for them to engage with, fled to inform their Sovereign, trembling, however, all the time at the consequences of their disobedience.
When Roderick and Edric reached the plain, the group of soldiers, with the poor doctor in the midst of them, were just entering one of the gates of the town through which they had made their sally. The rays of the
