Beauvallet Read Online Free PDF

had passed on to the poet Horace, and was inflicting quotations upon Master Dangerfield.
    ‘What came to Don Juan, señor?’ asked Dominica, finding the silence oppressive.
    ‘I suppose him to be steering for the island of your name, señora,’ Sir Nicholas replied, and cracked a nut between finger and thumb. The problems besetting Don Juan seemed to hold no interest for him.
    ‘And Señor Cruzada? And the rest?’
    ‘I did not send him alone, señora,’ said Beauvallet, one eyebrow lifting humorously. ‘I suppose Señor Cruzada, whomsoever he may be, to be of his company.’
    The lady selected another fragment of marchpane from the dish, and refused an offer of Hippocras to drink with it. She looked pensive. ‘You give quarter, you English?’
    ‘God's Life, did you suppose otherwise?’
    ‘I did not know, señor. They tell strange tales of you in the Indies.’
    ‘It seems so indeed.’ He looked amused. ‘Am I said to burn, torture, and slay, señora?’
    She met his gaze gravely. ‘You are a hardy man, señor. There are those who say you use witchcraft.’
    He flung back his head and laughed out at that. Don Manuel was startled, and broke off in the middle of a line, to the relief of Master Dangerfield, a-nod over his wine. ‘The only craft I use is sea-craft, señora,’ Beauvallet said. ‘I wear no charms, but I was born, so they tell me, when Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction. A happy omen! All honour to them!’ He raised his cup to these planets, and drank to them.
    ‘Alchemy is a snare, as also astrology,’ said Don Manuel sternly. ‘I regard the tenets of Paracelsus as pernicious, señor, but I believe they are much studied and thought of in England. A creed both absurd and heretical! Why, I have heard a man doubt that his neighbour was born under the sign of Sagittarius for no better reason than that he had a ruddy cheek, or a chestnut beard. Likewise you will meet those who will not stir beyond their doors without they have a piece of coral about them, or a sapphire to give them courage, or some other such toys, fit only for children or infidels. Then you will hear talk of the sky's division into Houses, this one governing such-and-such a thing, and that some other. A silly conceit, obtaining credulity of the foolish.’ Thus Don Manuel disposed of Paracelsus, very summarily.

Three

    T he second day was very bright, with a hot sun beating down upon the sea, and a stiff breeze blowing to fill the sails. Don Manuel remained below on his bunk, worn and shaken by the agitations and exertions of the previous day. He made a poor breakfast of sops dipped in wine, and sent his daughter from him. He shook with fever, and complained of the headache. Hovering assiduously about him was his own man, Bartolomeo, but he had also Joshua Dimmock to attend to his wants. This was done mighty expertly. Joshua discoursed learnedly on several fevers, and, not sharing Don Manuel's views on the Chaldean creed, prescribed the wearing of some chips from a gallows as a certain cure. These he produced from somewhere about his person, and expatiated fervently upon their magical properties. Don Manuel waved them testily aside, but consented to drink a strong cordial, which, he was assured, came straight from the stillroom of my Lady Beauvallet herself, a dame well-versed in these mysteries.
    ‘A sure potion, señor, as I have proved,’ Joshua told him, ‘containing julep and angelica, a handful of juniper berries, and betony, as also mithridate (so I believe), not to mention wormwood, which the world knows to be very potent against all manner of fevers. The whole, noble señor, steeped in a spiritof wine by my lady's own hands, and sealed up tightly, as you perceive. Deign only to test of its values!’
    Don Manuel drank off the cordial, and was assured of a speedy recovery. But Joshua shook his head secretly over the case, and told Sir Nicholas, in his private ear, that he carried a dying man aboard the