12
ed, unless some medicines more efficacious than common are administered; art thou acquainted with any such, friend Nicolas?—So please your Excellency, quoth Nicolas, my processes have been tolerably successful; I have bandages and cataplasms, with oils and conserves, that I have no cause to complain of; they will restore nature to its proper state In all decent time.—Thou talkest like a fool, friend Nicolas, interrupting him, said the Inquisitor? What tellest thou me of thy swathings and swaddlings? quick work must be wrought by quick medicine: hast thou none such in thy botica? I’ll answer for it thou hast not? therefore, look you, sirrah, here is a little vial compounded by a famous chemist; see that you mix it in the next apocem you administer to Donna Leonora; it is the most capital sedative in nature; give her the whole of it, and let her husband return when he will, depend upon it he will make no discoveries from her.—Humph! quoth Nicolas within himself, well said Inquisitor! He took the vial with all possible respect and was not wanting in professions of the most inviolable fidelity and secrecy.—No more words, friend Nicholas, quoth the Inquisitor, upon that score; I do not believe thee one jot the more for all thy promises, my dependence is upon thy fears and not thy faith; I fancy thou hast seen enough of this place not to be willing to return to it once for all! Having so said, he rang a bell, and ordered Nicolas to be forthwith liberated, bidding the messenger return his clothes instantly to him with all that belonged to him, and having slipt a purse into his hand well filled
