Chapter XLIV

De Tankard stood at the window of a small country inn, and watched the storm raging in the forest. Lithely bent the straight poplar with a low wail beneath the breath of the north wind. The oak roared, the beech howled, and the wild leaves, caught in the eddies of the winds, were wreathed by them into chaplets, as though the Spirit of the Storm wished to crown with them the noble gazer on his work.

“’Tis a great spectacle,” remarked De Tankard, to a man who stood beside him, of an air――oh, how grand!

Benonia (for it was indeed he!) sneered. “Have you ever seen a Mediterranean white squall, or a whirlwind in the Desert?” he asked.

“Alas, no!” was the reply. “I must soon visit the glorious East, the parent of religion, civilization, science, and art,” and the dark eyes of De Tankard glowed with Eastern fire.

“Ah, you are young,” exclaimed Benonia, with enthusiasm. “Glorious youth! By youth have all great deeds been accomplished. Ransack the history of ages. The fact is stamped on every line. The Trojan, Paris, was but a youth when he ran away with the fair Grecian, and got his native town destroyed for it ten years after! Cæsar was in the freshness of life when he destroyed the Republic and founded a despotism. Nero developed his villany early, and Heliogabalus was a confirmed glutton before his minority was over! Nay, to come to our own country, what was the age of the Boy Jones when he passed the sacred precincts of a Royal palace, and stood where none but Royal feet had ever trod before?――Barely sixteen! Look at Lord William Lennox――how young he was when he wrote his great works!”

Benonia paused. De Tankard dropped a warm and sparkling tear. “I will start to the East to-morrow!” he exclaimed.

“You had better have a couple of millions,” said Benonia. “I have got about half-a-dozen in my pocket to carry me over the night.”

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