defended himself for a good while by the considerations before recited;
but at length reflecting; that the person who was so desirous of being
let into the secret, had a great deal of discretion, he at length
suffered himself to be prevailed upon, and told him what Mattakesa had
wrote to him, for he did not understand a word of French, so could not
read the letter.

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