a week, when accident brought him in contact with the trapper and the
bee-hunter. Part of their interview has been related, and the reader can readily
imagine the explanations that succeeded the tale he recounted, and which led as
has already been seen to the recovery of his bride.
 

                                  Chapter XVI

 »These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence.
 Therefore, I pray you, stay not to discourse,
 But mount you presently; -«
                                            Two Gentlemen of Verona, V.ii.43-45.
 
An hour had slid by, in hasty and nearly incoherent questions and answers,
before Middleton, hanging over his recovered treasure with that sort of jealous
watchfullness, with which a miser would regard his hoards, closed the disjointed
narrative of his own proceedings by demanding -
    »And you, my Inez: in what manner were you treated?«
    »In every thing, but the great injustice they did in separating me so
forcibly from my friends, as well, perhaps, as the circumstances of my captors
would allow. I think the man, who is certainly the master here, is but a new
beginner in wickedness. He quarrelled, frightfully, in my presence, with the
wretch who seized me, and then they made an impious bargain, to which I was
compelled to acquiesce, and to which they bound me as well as themselves by
oaths. Ah! Middleton, I fear the heretics are not so heedful of their vows as we
who are nurtured in the bosom of the true church!«
    »Believe it not. These villains are of no religion - did they foreswear
themselves?«
    »No; but perjured. But was it not awful to call upon the good God, to
witness so sinful a compact!«
    »And so we think, Inez, as truly as the most virtuous Cardinal of Rome. But
how did they observe their oath, and what was its purport?«
    »They conditioned to leave me unmolested and free from their odious
presence, provided I would give a pledge to make no effort to escape, and that I
would not, even, show myself, until a time that my masters saw fit to name.«
    »And that time! -« demanded the impatient Middleton, who so well knew the
religious scruples of his wife - »That time -«
    »It is already passed. I was sworn by my Patron Saint, and faithfully did I
keep the vow, until the man they call Ishmael forgot the terms by offering
violence. I then made one appearance on the rock; for the time, too, was passed
- though