CHAPTER XIV.
"He abandoned all his schemes of policy, intent only upon the means of making, if possible, a handsome retreat from the disastrous situation into which his presumptuous confidence had betrayed him."
Sydenham.
It would have been very much below Don Henriquez's dignity to have escaped easily from Spain; and it was rather disrespectful of Fortune not to throw more impediments in his way than she did. He was as lucky in missing obstacles as heroes of romance used to be in finding them. Many were the disguises he assumed. At one time he even meditated cutting off his mustaches;—that would have been "the unkindest cut of all." However, after a longer period of wandering than he had expected, he found himself in perfect safety on board a little trading-vessel bound for Naples.
He was landed at his own express desire, on a lonely part of the sea-coast; and his precaution was rewarded by being, in a most pic-
