This officer no sooner heard the story, than he laughed heartily at the scruples of Horatio, in thinking himself bound to conceal an affair of this nature with a woman of the character Mattakesa must needs be:—­he also rallied his delicacy, as he termed it, in hesitating one moment whether he should gratify the lady’s inclinations.—­One would imagine, said he, that so long a fall from love as we have had, should render our appetites more keen:—­what, tho’ Mattakesa be neither handsome nor very young, she is a woman, and amorous, and methinks there should need no other excitements to a young man like you.

Horatio, tho’ naturally gay, was not at present in a disposition to continue this raillery, and told his friend, he looked on this inclination of Mattakesa to be as great a misfortune as could happen to them; for, said he, as it is wholly out of my power to make her any returns, that violence of temper which has transported her to forget the modesty of her sex, will probably, when she finds herself rejected, make her as easily throw off all the softness of it; and you may all feel the effects of that revenge she will endeavour to take on me.

The other was entirely of his opinion; and they both agreed that, some way ought to thought on to avert the storm, her resentment might in all probability occasion.

After many fruitless inventions, they at last hit upon one which had a prospect of success:  they had in their company a gentleman called Mullern, nephew to chancellor Mullern, who had attended the king in all his wars:  he was handsome, well made, and his age, tho’ much superior to that of Horatio, yet was not so far advanced as to render him disagreeable to the fair sex:  he was of a more than ordinary sanguine disposition, and had often said, of all the hardships their captivity had inflicted on them, he felt none so severely as being deprived of a free conversation with women.—­In the ravages the king of Sweden’s arms had made in Lithuania, Saxony and Poland, he was sure to secure to himself three or four of the finest women; and tho’ he had been often checked by his uncle, and even by the king himself, for giving too great a loose to his amorous inclinations, yet all their admonitions were too weak to restrain the impetuosity of his desires this way.  To him, therefore, they resolved to communicate the affair; and as he was in other respects the most proper object among them to succeed in supplanting Horatio, so he was also by being perfectly well versed in the French language, which the rest were ignorant of.

Accordingly they told him what had happened, shewed him the letter, and how willing Horatio would be to transfer all the interest he had in this lady to him, if he could by any means ingratiate himself into her favour.  Mullern was transported at the idea; and the stratagem contrived among them for this purpose was executed in the following manner: