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"What, is this Lucilla?" said Godolphin admiringly: "how beautiful she is grown!" and advancing, he saluted, with a light and fraternal kiss, her girlish and damask cheek: then, without heeding her confusion, he turned to the astrologer, who by this time had a little recovered from his amaze. Godolphin now came almost daily to the astrologer's abode.
"The crew, who, under names of old renown, Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train, With monstrous shapes and sorceries, abused Fanatic Egypt and her priests." One night, four years after the last scene we have described in the astrologer's house, Volktman was sitting alone in his favourite room. Before him was a calculation on which the ink was scarcely dry.
They, however, arrived at length at the capital of China, where Marzavan, instead of going to his lodgings, carried the prince to a public inn. They tarried there incognito for three days to rest themselves after the fatigue of the voyage; during which time Marzavan caused an astrologer's dress to be made for the prince.
Godolphin, moved by interest and pity for the daughter of his friend, called once or twice after the funeral at the house; and commended, with promises and gifts, the desolate girl to the tenderness and commiseration of her relations. More than a month had elapsed since the astrologer's decease; and, the season of the malaria verging to its commencement, Godolphin meditated a removal to Naples.
On the humble pallet of the village inn lay the broken form of the astrologer's expiring daughter. The surgeon of the place sat by the bedside, dismayed and terrified, despite his hardened vocation, by the wild words and ghastly shrieks that ever and anon burst from the lips of the dying woman.
"Gramercy!" said the Lord Scales, in a somewhat affected intonation of voice, "the conjunction of the bear and the young lion is a parlous omen, for the which I could much desire we had a wise astrologer's reading." "It is said," observed one of the courtiers, "that the Duke of Clarence much affects either the lands or the person of the Lady Isabel."
"Yes," she cried, "that is the word murderess! for I murdered your daughter-in-law. You never liked her, you know, Lady Kingsland. Surely, then, when I stabbed her and threw her into the sea, I did you a good turn. Lie still, and listen to me. I have a long story to tell you, beginning with the astrologer's prediction."
But now you are rested, so let us come to business, for otherwise you will have to stop here all night and Pharaoh would be angry." "Oh, to Set with Pharaoh! Though it is true that he is a good paymaster, and knows the value of a clever woman. Now, what is this business?" The old astrologer's face grew hard and cunning. Going to the door he made sure that it was locked and drew a curtain over it.
The old man listened silently till the priest, in faltering accents, added that the astrologer's wife had sent him, then he stammered: "Hora? Has my son, too, been stricken?" The messenger bent his head, and the two listeners wept bitterly, for the astrologer had lost his first-born son and the youth a beloved father.
Lighting their incense, they called loudly for the soul, till the medium rushed off home again, telling them the soul would return with them, and the sick man would recover. But again the gods had played them false, for the sick man got worse instead of better. What was to be done next? An astrologer's advice was sought, and readily given.
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